In the mid-1970s, while browsing in the Chicago Public Library, I came across The Rise of the Western World by Douglass North and Robert Thomas. [1] This short book tells a fascinating story of how property rights, trade, and limited government led to prosperity in the West (prosperity that eventually spread around the world).
Since then I’ve read many books about the success of the West and specifically about the Industrial Revolution, which started in England around 1760 and is generally viewed as continuing till 1830. I personally rate the Industrial Revolution as equal in importance to the discovery of agriculture.
So it will come as no surprise that, as a graduate student in history, I am studying the Industrial Revolution. In fact, I am studying labor conditions in the Industrial Revolution. Yes, the labor conditions that Charles Dickens wrote about in his novels Hard Times and Oliver Twist.
On the one hand, the Industrial Revolution was an exciting time. As a British schoolboy supposedly said, “About 1760 a wave of gadgets swept over England.”[2] New inventions, especially in the textile industry, appeared one after another, enormously improving productivity, reducing costs, and launching an age of material success.
On the other hand, labor conditions were tough. The new factories needed workers and brawn was not required. Women and children could work and monitor the machines—and they did.
Children were an especially valuable source of labor. Before the factories had emerged, “parish apprentices,” either orphans or children of very poor families, had been farmed out to tradesmen in fields such as carpentry, printing, etc. But parish overseers struggled to find tradesmen willing to take on these apprentices. Thus, the new factories were a bonanza. It was possible to relieve the parish of many costs by sending parish wards to factories, even if it meant young children were far away from their parents. The factories needed the children and many children worked 12 to 14 hours a day.
The mistreatment of children gradually became notorious, and by 1814 the descriptions of their poor health, the long hours they worked, and the cruelty sometimes shown to them began to fill the pages of parliamentary reports.
But almost as famous as the maltreated children were the images of the people who were left out of the factories—especially the handloom weavers. By 1830, as the power loom increasingly mechanized weaving, traditional weaving was uncompetitive. The weavers’ incomes sank, throwing many into destitution.
In other words, spinners and weavers could earn more in the factories than they could at home, where many had spun and weaved on a piecemeal basis.
So that’s my subject—labor conditions in the Industrial Revolution. Give me credit for looking the worst in the eye. I will report on what I learn, and I would love to receive comments about what I am saying.
[1] Douglass North and Robert Thomas, The Rise of the Western World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973).
[2] T.S. Ashton, The Industrial Revolution, 1760 to 1830. (London: Oxford University Press, [1948] 1968), 42.
Jane, I have nothing particularly illuminating to add, but am intrigued by your study of this period in history, and I look forward to future posts.
The digital revolution is causing displacements for some workers and opportunities for others – much like the worker experiences in the industrial revolution. It will be fascinating to read about these analogous experiences.
This rings a family history note for me. My paternal great-grandfather died young, leaving five young kids behind. This was around the turn of the 20th century, in inner city Philadelphia. My grandfather was the oldest boy, and he had to drop out of sixth grade to go to work full-time in a textile mill to help support the family. His youngest brother, on the other hand, got to finish high school. I didn’t know my grandfather particularly well, and I don’t know how many hours he had to work each day, but I heard he was resentful about having to go to work so early.