1. The Changing Workplace
Chapter 8.4

2. Industry Changes Work
Before women went into textiles, most of the product was developed at home by females.
Women spun and sewn most of the families clothing from raw fibers.
The move to factories split families.

3. Rural Manufacturing
When Lowell, Appleton and Jackson opened the weaving factories their power looms replaced the cottage industry
Cottage Industry- manufacturers provided the materials for goods to be produced at home.

5. Early Factories
Early 19th century skilled artisans made goods usually in a shop connected to the home that typically an average family could not produce by themselves
Example: furniture, tools
Artisans were common until the 1820’s until the use of interchangeable parts.
Master: the most experienced
Journeyman: assisted the master
Apprentice: young worker learning the craft

7. Farm Worker to Factory Worker
“Mill girls” were under strict supervision, almost entirely unmarried girls clustered in Lowell in boarding houses.
Had strict curfews, behavioral restraints, and church attendance was strictly monitored.
By 1828, women made up
90% of the work force in the New England mills and 4/5 women were under 30 years old.

9. The Lowell Mill
Mill owners hired women because they could pay them lower wages than men for the same work.
Other female jobs included: teaching, sewing, and domestic work.
Women generally only stayed in the mills for a few years.

10. Conditions in Lowell 1/2 5:00am Wake Up 7:00am Called to the Mill
12:30pm Lunch (1/2 hour)
7:30pm Workday Ends

11. Conditions in Lowell 2/2
Heat, poor ventilation and darkness contributed to discomfort and illness.
Windows were nailed shut to keep the heat in to benefit cloth.
production increased three time but only hired 50% more workers.
% pay cut on women, the women began to organize and started a strike

13. Strikes at Lowell
The mills threatened to hire local women, the press criticized the women, the women returned to work with the pay cut, the heads of the strike were fired.
A second protest in 1836 again was squashed and the strike leaders were fired. Protest was due to living costs being increased

14. Workers Seek Better Conditions
Unions were formed to make changes like shortening work days or increasing the wages.
1%-2% of U.S workers were organized; many strikes took place throughout the 1830s and 1840s.
Many strikes were squashed by other unskilled workers offering to work the long hours for little pay. Many being from Europe with even worse poverty.

16. Immigration Increases
Immigration rose dramatically between 1830 and 1860.
Between 1845 and 1854 nearly 3 million immigrants came to America, most were German and Irish. Most stayed north because slavery in the South limited the opportunities.
Americans were prejudice to the Irish because they were Roman Catholics and impoverished. Americans did not like losing jobs to immigrants who would work for less with more hours.

17. National Trade Unions
Early attempts to organize different tradesmen attempted to organize.
Such trades as carpenters, shoemakers, weavers, printers and comb makers set up unions.
They tried to standardize wages and conditions throughout each industry.
(1834) Journeymen’s from 6 industries formed the largest union called the National Trades’ Union which lasted until The union was forced to break once the courts made a decision to make striking illegal.

18. Courts Back Strikers
1842- Massachusetts Supreme Court supported workers right to strike.
The case of Commonwealth v. Hunt, Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw declared that boot makers could act “in such a manner as best to subserve their own interests.”