Chapter 7 Section 3
Hardships of Early Industrial Life
Lesson Objectives
• Compare and contrast the industrial working
class and the new middle class
• Understand how the factory system and mines
changed the way people worked.
• Analyze the benefits and challenges of
industrialization.
Life in the new industrial city
• Industrial Rev. brought rapid urbanization
(movement of people to cities)
– Movement of farmers to the city
– Soaring population growth
– Increasing demands for workers in factories
– Small towns grew around iron & coal mines
Manchester, England
• Manchester, England
– 17,000 people in 1750
– 40,000 people in 1780
– 70,000 people in 1801
Tenements
• Tenements (multistory
buildings divided into
crowded apartments)
– No running water
– No sewage or sanitation
systems
– Waste & garbage
– Diseases like cholera
spread like crazy
• Wealthy & middle class
lived in pleasant
neighborhoods
Factory System
• Factory system changed the way people lived
– The factory was the heart of the industrial city
– Rigid discipline, unvaried, monotonous work
– Strict schedule of long hours, 12-16 hours a day
– Exhausted workers suffered accidents - loss of
limbs, even lives
• Coal miners - lungs destroyed
• Textile workers – breathed in lint
• Workers got sick or injured, often lost jobs
Women Workers
• Women workers
– Preferred by employers
– Adapted more easily to
machines
– More easily managed
– Able to pay less for same
work
– Away from home 12+
hours
• Return to tenements –
feed, clean for & clothe
families
Child Labor
• Parents let their children work because families
needed the money
– Textile mills
– Small fingers changed spools
– Crawl under machines to fix parts
• Children worked in coal mines
– Pushed carts
– Climbed into narrow spaces to chip minerals off mine
walls
• Parliament slowly passed laws to regulate child
labor
Working Class
• Developed sense of community
• Forbidden to:
– Organize groups
– Bargain for better pay or working conditions
– Strike
– Protestors were repressed or crushed
Luddites
• Protests led by the mythical Ned Ludd
– Resisted “labor-saving” machines, were costing
their jobs
– Smashed machines, burnt factories
Methodism
• Spread of Methodism –
religious movement
founded by John Wesley
– Promised forgiveness of
sin, better life to come &
gave workers some
comfort
– Studied the Bible,
learned to read & write
– Turned workers away
from revolution &
toward reform
New Middle Class
• Benefited the most from Industrial Revolution
– Were entrepreneurs (business owners) who began
Industrial Revolution
– Felt poor factory workers were responsible for
their own poverty & misery
• Came from several sources
– Rose from rags to riches
– Merchants – invested growing profits in factories
– Inventors – created new technologies
Middle Class Women
• “Ladylike” activities –
drawing, embroidery,
playing piano
• Did not work outside
the home or do their
own housework
Reformers
• Reformers pressed for laws to improve working
conditions
– Labor unions (worker’s organizations) won right to bargain
with employers for better wages, hours, & working
conditions
– Working class men gained right to vote & political power
• Material benefits
– Demand for mass-produced goods > new factories > more
jobs
– Wages rose > extra $$ for reading material &
entertainment
– Cost of rail travel fell > people able to travel