Blog Post #2: Conditions for Workers in the Industrial Revolution

                Nobody wants to work somewhere that leaves them feeling worthless at the end of the day. This is true of adults and teens in the workforce of today’s society, but it was especially so for the child laborers (and older workers) of the Industrial Revolution, especially in England. The working conditions in the mills and factories of industrial-age cities made working a hellish experience for the poor children who were stuck there.

                The worst conditions were found in Industrial Britain, the heart of which was the city of Manchester (incidentally, now home to the worst soccer team, Manchester United, but also one of the best, Manchester City). Here, workers were treated no better than slaves. Punishments in English factories were very extreme, with overseers whipping children, and cutting girls’ hair too short if they disobeyed their masters. Food was limited to tasteless slop, usually consisting of hard oats, potatoes, and fatty bacon. Meals were never eaten sitting down.  Though there were dangers in American factories as well, most reported incidents came from English cities. The children in these factories could have had limbs crushed in the machines, and if clothing or hair got caught, the rest of a child’s body could have been taken, too.  Other physical deformities arose from too much joint use and wearing-down of the bones. As William Dodd, a child worker in a factory said in reference to his hurt arm after working there for several years- “On dissection, the bones of the forearm presented a very curious appearance - something similar to an empty honeycombe, the marrow having totally disappeared.”

                Though American mills and factories were certainly not perfect, most historians and primary sources state that things were better there, especially in the city of Lowell. Unlike British factory workers, American girls working in Lowell mills were given free room and board, as well as a small salary to use for themselves. Most girls remained quite healthy and very few suffered the physical deformities their English counterparts did. Since the United States were not quite as poor and industrial as England, the mills overall were quite clean and healthy to be in. As novelist Charles Dickens wrote upon his visit to the Lowell mills, “The rooms in which [the factory girls] worked were as well ordered as themselves.” Also, most workers were there voluntarily; most likely farm girls from a neighboring region.

                Though it can be argued that an increase in industrialization of a city can lead to a decline in the working conditions there, there is a sharp contrast between the two hubs of the Industrial Revolution. It is hard to say what the USA was able to do that Britain could not, but the difference in worker morale and health in the two countries is astounding. However, industrial-age cities, especially in England, didn't have particularly child-friendly working conditions.