Labor Conditions

25.6.3: Labor Conditions

During the Industrial Revolution, laborers in factories, mills, and mines worked long hours under very dangerous conditions, though historians continue to debate the extent to which those conditions worsened the fate of the worker in pre-industrial society.

Learning Objective

Review the conditions workers labored under in the early factories

Key Points

  • As a result of industrialization, ordinary working people found increased opportunities for employment in the new mills and factories, but these were often under strict working conditions with long hours of labor dominated by a pace set by machines. The nature of work changed from a craft production model to a factory-centric model.
  • In the textile industry, factories set hours of work and the machinery within them shaped the pace of work. Factories brought workers together within one building and increased the division of labor, narrowing the number and scope of tasks and including children and women within a common production process. Maltreatment, industrial accidents, and ill health from overwork and contagious diseases were common in the enclosed conditions of cotton mills. Children were particularly vulnerable.
  • Work discipline was forcefully instilled upon the workforce by the factory owners, and the working conditions were dangerous and even deadly. Early industrial factories and mines created numerous health risks, and injury compensation for the workers did not exist. Machinery accidents could lead to burns, arm and leg injuries, amputation of fingers and limbs, and death. However, diseases were the most common health issues that had long-term effects.
  • Mining has always been especially dangerous, and at the beginning of the 19th century, methods of coal extraction exposed men, women, and children to very risky conditions. In 1841, about 216,000 people were employed in the mines. Women and children worked underground for 11-12 hours a day. The public became aware of conditions in the country’s collieries in 1838 after an accident at Huskar Colliery in Silkstone. The disaster came to the attention of Queen Victoria who ordered an inquiry.
  • Lord Ashley headed the royal commission of inquiry, which investigated the conditions of workers, especially children, in the coal mines in 1840. Commissioners visited collieries and mining communities gathering information, sometimes against the mine owners’ wishes. The report, illustrated by engraved illustrations and the personal accounts of mine workers, was published in 1842. The investigation led to passing one of the earlier pieces of labor legislation: the Mines and Collieries Act of 1842. It prohibited all girls and boys under ten years old from working underground in coal mines.
  • Over time, more men than women would find that industrial employment and industrial wages provided a higher level of material security than agricultural employment. Consequently, women would be left behind in less-profitable agriculture. By the late 1860s, very low wages in agricultural work turned women to industrial employment on assembly lines, providing industrial laundry services, and in the textile mills. Women were never paid the same wage as a man for the same work.

Key Terms

Mines and Collieries Act
An 1842 act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which prohibited all girls and boys under ten years old from working underground in coal mines. It was a response to the working conditions of children revealed in the Children’s Employment Commission (Mines) 1842 report.
hurrier
A child or woman employed by a collier to transport the coal that they had mined. Women would normally get the children to help them because of the difficulty of carrying the coal. Common particularly in the early 19th century, they pulled a corf (basket or small wagon) full of coal along roadways as small as 16 inches in height. They would often work 12-hour shifts, making several runs down to the coal face and back to the surface again.

 

Industrial Working Practices

As a result of industrialization, ordinary working people found increased opportunities for employment in the new mills and factories, but these were often under strict working conditions with long hours of labor dominated by a pace set by machines.The nature of work changed from a craft production model to a factory-centric model. Between the 1760s and 1850, factories organized workers’ lives much differently than did craft production. The textile industry, central to the Industrial Revolution, serves as an illustrative example of these changes. Prior to industrialization, handloom weavers worked at their own pace, with their own tools, within their own cottages. Now, factories set hours of work and the machinery within them shaped the pace. Factories brought workers together within one building to work on machinery that they did not own. They also increased the division of labor, narrowing the number and scope of tasks and including children and women within a common production process. The early textile factories employed a large share of children and women. In 1800, there were 20,000 apprentices (usually pauper children) working in cotton mills. The apprentices were particularly vulnerable to maltreatment, industrial accidents, and ill health from overwork and widespread contagious diseases such as smallpox, typhoid, and typhus. The enclosed conditions (to reduce the frequency of thread breakage, cotton mills were usually very warm and as draft-free as possible) and close contact within mills and factories allowed contagious diseases to spread rapidly. Typhoid was spread through poor sanitation in mills and the settlements around them.In all industries, women and children made significantly lower wages than men for the same work.

 

A Roberts loom in a weaving shed in 1835. Illustrator T. Allom in History of the cotton manufacture in Great Britain by Sir Edward Baines.

In reference to the growing number of women in the textile industry, Friedrich Engels argued the family structure was “turned upside down” as women’s wages undercut men’s, forcing men to “sit at home” and care for children while the wife worked long hours. Historical records have shown, however, that women working the same long hours under the same dangerous conditions as men never made the same wages as men and the patriarchal model of the family was hardly undermined.

Work discipline was forcefully instilled upon the workforce by the factory owners and the working conditions were dangerous and even deadly. Early industrial factories and mines created numerous health risks, and injury compensation for the workers did not exist. Machinery accidents could lead to burns, arm and leg injuries, amputation of fingers and limbs, and death. However, diseases were the most common health issues that had long-term effects. Cotton mills, coal mines, iron-works, and brick factories all had bad air, which caused chest diseases, coughs, blood-spitting, hard breathing, pains in chest, and insomnia. Workers usually toiled extremely long hours, six days a week. However, it is important to note that historians continue to debate the question of to what extent early industrialization worsened and to what extent it improved the fate of the workers, as working practices and conditions in the pre-industrial society were similarly difficult. Child labor, dangerous working conditions, and long hours were just as prevalent before the Industrial Revolution.

Mining has always been especially dangerous and at the beginning of the 19th century, methods of coal extraction exposed men, women, and children to very risky conditions. In 1841, about 216,000 people were employed in the mines. Women and children worked underground for 11-12 hours a day. The public became aware of conditions in the country’s collieries in 1838 after an accident at Huskar Colliery in Silkstone, near Barnsley. A stream overflowed into the ventilation drift after violent thunderstorms, causing the death of 26 children, 11 girls ages 8 to 16 and 15 boys between 9 and 12 years of age. The disaster came to the attention of Queen Victoria, who ordered an inquiry. Lord Ashley headed the royal commission of inquiry, which investigated the conditions of workers, especially children, in the coal mines in 1840. Commissioners visited collieries and mining communities gathering information, sometimes against the mine owners’ wishes. The report, illustrated by engraved illustrations and the personal accounts of mine workers, was published in 1842. The middle class and elites were shocked to learn that children as young as five or six worked as trappers, opening and shutting ventilation doors down the mine before becoming hurriers, pushing and pulling coal tubs and corfs. The investigation led to one of the earlier pieces of labor legislation: the Mines and Collieries Act of 1842. It prohibited all girls and boys under ten years old from working underground in coal mines.

 

Working-Class Women

Before the Mines and Collieries Act 1842, women (and children) worked underground as hurriers who carted tubs of coal up through the narrow mine shafts. In Wolverhampton, the law did not have much of an impact on women’s mining employment because they mainly worked above-ground at the coal mines, sorting coal, loading canal boats, and other surface tasks. Over time, more men than women would find industrial employment, and industrial wages provided a higher level of material security than agricultural employment. Consequently, women, who were traditionally involved in all agricultural labor, would be left behind in less-profitable agriculture. By the late 1860s, very low wages in agricultural work turned women to industrial employment.

In industrialized areas, women could find employment on assembly lines, providing industrial laundry services, and in the textile mills that sprang up during the Industrial Revolution in such cities as Manchester, Leeds, and Birmingham. Spinning and winding wool, silk, and other types of piecework were a common way of earning income by working from home, but wages were very low and hours long. Often 14 hours per day were needed to earn enough to survive. Needlework was the single highest-paid occupation for women working from home, but the work paid little and women often had to rent sewing machines that they could not afford to buy. These home manufacturing industries became known as “sweated industries” (think of today’s sweat shops). The Select Committee of the House of Commons defined sweated industries in 1890 as “work carried on for inadequate wages and for excessive hours in unsanitary conditions.” By 1906, such workers earned about a penny an hour. Women were never paid the same wage as a man for the same work, despite the fact that they were as likely as men to be married and supporting children.

Attributions