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Making the Industrialized Worker

Looking back from the vantage point of the 1820s and 1830s, contemporary observers saw in early industrialization a process that was as much about social transformation as it was about technological transformation—a process in which changes in work conditions were closely tied to changes in workers’ family lives, values, and mental habits.

Prior to the year 1760, manufactures were in a great measure confined to the demands of the home market. At this period, and down to 1800 . . . the majority of the artisans engaged in them had laboured in their own houses, and in the bosoms of their families. . . .

These were, undoubtedly, the golden times of manufactures, considered in reference to the character of the labourers. By all the processes being carried on under a man’s own roof, he retained his individual respectability; he was kept apart from associations that might injure his moral worth, whilst he generally earned wages which were sufficient not only to live comfortably upon, but which enabled him to rent a few acres of land; thus joining in his own person two classes, that are now daily becoming more and more distinct. . . .

Thus, removed from many of those causes which universally operate to the deterioration of the moral character of the labouring man, when brought into large towns . . . the small farmer, spinner, or hand-loom weaver presents as orderly and respectable an appearance as could be wished. It is true that the amount of labour gone through was but small; that the quantity of cloth or yarn produced was but limited—for he worked by the rule of his strength and convenience. They were, however, sufficient to clothe and feed himself and family decently, and according to their station; to lay by a penny for an evil day, and to enjoy those amusements and bodily recreations then in being. He was a respectable member of society; a good father, a good husband, and a good son.

The progress of the Cotton Manufacture introduced great changes into the manners and habits of the people. The operative workmen being thrown together in great numbers had their faculties sharpened and improved by constant communication. Conversation wandered over a variety of topics not before essayed; the questions of Peace and War, which interested them importantly, inasmuch as they might produce a rise or fall of wages, became highly interesting, and this brought them into the vast field of politics and discussions on the character of their Government, and the men who composed it. They took a greater interest in the defeats and victories of their country’s arms, and from being only a few degrees above their cattle in the scale of intellect, they became Political Citizens. . . .

The facility with which the Weavers changed their masters, the constant effort to find out and obtain the largest remuneration for their labour, the excitement to ingenuity which the higher wages for fine manufactures and skillful workmanship produced, and a conviction that they depended mainly on their own exertions, produced in them that invaluable feeling, a spirit of freedom and independence, and that guarantee for good conduct and improvement of manners, a consciousness of the value of character and of their own weight and importance.

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QUESTION: What is your usual experience regarding the cleanliness of these classes?

DR. BLUEMNER: Bad! Mother has to go out to work, and can therefore pay little attention to the domestic economy, and even if she makes an effort, she lacks time and means. A typical woman of this kind has four children, of whom she is still suckling one, she has to look after the whole household, to take food to her husband at work, perhaps a quarter of a mile away on a building site; she therefore has no time for cleaning and then it is such a small hole inhabited by so many people. The children are left to themselves, crawl about the floor or in the streets, and are always dirty; they lack the necessary clothing to change more often, and there is no time or money to wash these frequently. There are, of course, gradations; if the mother is healthy, active and clean, and if the poverty is not too great, then things are better.

The system of receiving apprentices from public charities was abolished; permanent settlers with large families were encouraged, and comfortable houses built for their accommodation. The practice of employing children in the mills, of six, seven, and eight years of age, was discontinued, and their parents advised to allow them to acquire health and education until they were ten years old. . . . The children were taught reading, writing, and arithmetic during five years, that is, from five to ten, in the village school, without expense to their parents. . . .

[A]ttention was given to the domestic arrangements of the community. Their houses were rendered more comfortable, their streets were improved, the best provisions were purchased, and sold to them at low rates. . . . They were taught to be rational, and they acted rationally. Thus both parties experienced the incalculable advantages of the system which had been adopted. Those employed became industrious, temperate, healthy, faithful to their employers, and kind to each other; while the proprietors were deriving services . . . far beyond those which could be obtained by any other means than those of mutual confidence and kindness.

ANALYZING THE EVIDENCE

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Using the sources above, along with what you have learned in class and in this chapter, create a comparison of industrial and preindustrial conditions, written from the perspective of a nineteenth-century observer. Your observer can come from any social background: he or she could be a scholar like Peter Gaskell or Richard Guest, a factory owner like Robert Owen, or an actual factory worker. As you write, be sure to consider the influence of your observer’s background on his or her characterization of the changes brought by industrialization. What differences would your observer highlight? Why?

Sources: (1) Peter Gaskell, The Manufacturing Population of England: Its Moral, Social, and Physical Conditions, and the Changes Which Have Arisen from the Use of Steam Machinery (London: Baldwin and Cradock, 1833), pp. 15–16, 18; (2) E. Royston Pike, Human Documents of the Industrial Revolution in Britain (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1970), pp. 26–28; (3) Laura L. Frader, ed., The Industrial Revolution: A History in Documents (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 85–86; (5) Pike, Human Documents of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, pp. 37–42.