The Changing Workplace

The Changing Workplace CHAPTER 8.4 Industry Changes Work Early 1800s ◦Cottage industry: system in which manufacturers provided the materials for goods to be produced at home ◦ Mostly produced by women ◦ Increase in mechanization took away jobs, lifestyle from women

Industry Changes Work Early 1800s ◦Artisans Produce Goods ◦ master – highly experienced artisan ◦ journeyman – skilled worker employed by master ◦ apprentice – young worker learning craft ◦Factories Revolutionize Industry ◦ cost of household goods drops ◦ machines replace artisans ◦ unskilled workers run machines Farm Worker to Factory Worker Lowell, MA ◦ most mill workers are unmarried farm girls ◦ under strict control of female supervisor ◦ Women paid less than men; still happy to work ◦ alternatives (teaching, sewing, domestic work) pay even less ◦ most girls stay at Lowell for only a few years ◦ mill girls take new ideas back home

Working Conditions Working conditions in Lowell ◦ 12 hours shifts ◦ Poor lighting ◦ Poor ventilation ◦ Hot and humid ◦ Conditions continued to worsen Strikes at Lowell ◦ 1834, pay cut by 15% ◦ 800 mill girls conduct a strike (work stoppage to force employers to respond to demands) ◦ 1836, board charges (food & rent) increased 12.5% ◦ 1600 mill girls strike ◦ Company prevailed both times; fired strike leaders

“When you sell your product, you retain your person. But when you sell your labour, you sell yourself, losing the rights of free men and becoming vassals of mammoth establishments of a monied aristocracy that threatens annihilation to anyone who questions their right to enslave and oppress.

Those who work in the mills ought to own them, not have the status of machines ruled by private despots who are entrenching monarchic principles on democratic soil as they drive downwards freedom and rights, civilization, health, morals and intellectuality in the new commercial feudalism.”

- Lowell Mill Girls on wage slavery Workers Unionize Artisans form unions 1830-1840s ◦ Skilled and unskilled laborers team up to form unions ◦ Only 1-2% of workers were organized; still performed dozens of strikes ◦ Employers use strikebreakers to prevail over unions ◦ Usually immigrants Immigration 1840-1860 ◦ European immigration to the U.S. increases ◦ 1845 to 1854: 3 million arrive, mostly German or Irish ◦ Immigrants avoided the South ◦ Irish fled famine; faced bitter prejudice in U.S. ◦ Poor, Catholic, unfair labor competition

"Those who come hither are generally of the most ignorant Stupid Sort of their own Nation…and as few of the English understand the German Language, and so cannot address them either from the Press or Pulpit, ’tis almost impossible to remove any prejudices they once entertain…Not being used to Liberty, they know not how to make a modest use of it…I remember when they modestly declined intermeddling in our Elections, but now they come in droves, and carry all before them, except in one or two Counties...In short unless the stream of their importation could be turned from this to other colonies, as you very judiciously propose, they will soon so out number us, that all the advantages we have will not in My Opinion be able to preserve our language, and even our Government will become precarious.“

- Benjamin Franklin on Germans “Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion.”

- Benjamin Franklin on Germans Workers Organize Unions formed to represent specific industries ◦ Ex: carpentry union, shoemaking union, weaving union, etc. ◦ Sought to standardize wages and conditions in each industry ◦ 1830s, unions unite to form federations Bankers, owners form associations ◦ Courts declare strikes illegal 1842, Massachusetts Supreme Court upholds right to strike ◦ 1860: 5,000 union members; 20,000 in strikes