Discuss The Changes That Occurred After The Industrial Revolution
After the American Revolution ended, labor went through many changes as technology developed and shaped multiple forms of labor. The main three changed labor sectors were artisan, slave and industrial labor. Artisan labor was labor that needed specific skills and was done at home; it was important and profitable before the American Revolution. Slave labor was labor that was done by slaves and was used mostly in the South. Industrial labor was labor focused on industrial work. Changes to labor, mainly technology, affected artisan, slave, and industrial labor by changing the way people in these sectors worked and lived; the changes in labor also affect politics as the free labor discussion made an appearance and influenced people’s attitude
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to labor which shaped society.
In the beginning of the growth of the U.S. market, artisan labor grew. Some artisans were able to begin producing goods in large quantities and selling it locally or internationally. A perfect example of this was butter, which at first women made only for the use of the family but as they made surplus they began selling it between farms (Schaller et al. Pg.330). More and more women began to specialize in butter making and produced large quantities to sell as commodity (Schaller et al. Pg.330).The stable price of butter provided farming families an extra income. The making of butter was a type of artisan skill because it was made at home instead of a factory. With the growth of the Market Economy, this artisan labor grew. It revealed that the expansion of a market economy was in the beginning a good thing for artisan labor but it soon changed as the factory system in the U.S. increased. The factory system of production created negative effects for artisan labor as artisan broke-down. The reason of the artisan system breakdown was because the “burgeoning use of steam power and mechanical reproduction in the early 1800s allowed factory owners to underprice and out produce artisans” (Schaller et al. Pg.369). The production in a factory was also quicker as it was multiple workers creating a product. When artisan labor was broken down, most artisans became wage laborers whose outcome depended on the situation they found themselves in with their bosses (Schaller et al. Pg. 339). A possible positive outcome for artisans would be that now as a wage laborer they would be able to bargain with an honest employer who observed the rules of their contract (Schaller et al. Pg.370). This would be beneficial because they could earn a steady wage that would allow them to not just work to be able to keep their families alive. A negative outcome would be that employers would not recognize their contracts and pay them poorly and as a result they would be earning less money than previously (Schaller et al. Pg. 370). The negative outcome seemed to be more common because wages declined. For example, in New York real wages among the major trades declined through the 1830s and 1840s. (Schaller et al. Pg.370). Another negative outcome is that through the factory system there could no longer be any kind of new artisans as wage laborers only focused on one part of the production and only knew how to do that part of an entire process that artisans before would know and complete (Schaller et al. Pg. 370).Artisan labor was mostly eradicated through the factory system as it was no longer needed, and as a result, this sector seized to exist.
While artisan labor slowly died, slave labor intensified with the changes that occurred after the American Revolution. These results were positive for some and negative for others. The southerners who owned slaves enjoyed the growth of slave labor as it brought them more profit, but on the other hand, it affected the slaves who labored in the plantation negatively. The invention of the cotton gin allowed for cotton to be produced more quickly and with the improvements of Eli Whitney, the cotton gin resulted in the number of cotton grown to double each decade after 1800. The demand of cotton also grew and made the southerners think it was “King” because it was imported by multiple European powers (Schaller et al. Pg.482). The demand of cotton resulted in the demand of labor. This high demand of labor created more work for the slaves as they now had the job to grow more cotton than they were used to. It can be inferred that this type of activity was much more strenuous. It also increased the internal slave trade as the need for slaves in the South increased, which caused not only death to the slaves who were forced to go through a second passage made of long marches, but it also broke families apart (Schaller et al. Pg. 375). A new practice that appeared due to the factory system is the rental of slaves. The Rental Market was the practice of slave owners renting out their slaves to factories to work in, this grew quickly and became a prominent practice. The Rental Market grew so much so that 1/3 of workers in Tobacco factories were slaves (Schaller et al. Pg. 448). The increase of the rental market allowed slaves some freedom and expanded slave labor to not just southern plantations. Masters hired out their slaves to companies which would result in the slave working in a factory and with this a slave could have a little more autonomy as they were not supervised after the work day ended (Schaller et al. Pg. 448).) At the end of the Civil war free African Americans had few options on their path as they could only became wage workers, rent land to farm for themselves or practice sharecropping (Schaller et al. Pg.508). Sharecropping became popular as slaves would continue to grow for their masters but gained autonomy because they earned 50% of what was sold and were the ones who decided when to work on the land (Schaller et al. Pg.524). African Americans did not gain much from either becoming a wage worker or participating in sharecropping as they still suffered from unfair contracts in the South. Furthermore, as slave labor increased and then was outlawed in the South, industrial labor seemed to also grow in the Unites States.
Industrial labor grew during the Industrial Revolution and the creation of the Factory System.
In a world view, a worker benefited from the industrial revolution as comparably American workers enjoyed 40 percent higher wages than their counterparts in England (Schaller et al. Pg.353). Their wages were higher than others but there were still negative effects. Working conditions were poor and dangerous to the workers and the people hired were not only adults but also children who were expected to work just the same as an adult worker. While workers were affected both positively and negatively, industries grew and increased the need for industrial labor. For example, the cotton industry grew and the creation of mill girls appeared, who worked in mills weaving cotton (Schaller et al. Pg.382). Industrial labor was also interconnected with slave labor as both participated in the cotton and tobacco industry. For example, there would be no mill girls in the cotton industry if there was no slave labor available to pick cotton in the South. The growth of industrial labor caused American cities to grow as a result because people followed to work in factories. The result of the growing American cities allowed rich city dwellers to be able to hire someone to do things that they would normally do or would still be done in a more rural setting (Schaller et al. Pg.382).Women filled these role as they became “cooks, cleaners, launderers, seamstress, and all-purpose domestic” work (Schaller et al. Pg.382). Industrial labor was also practiced in the South but it was much more prominent in the North. The North’s industrial labor allowed the North to be able to win the Civil War as their industrial sector was larger than the South. During, the Civil War, the North had a boom of industrial labor(Schaller et al Pg.499). Companies produced things like meat, oil extractions, and all type of military supplies from uniforms to weapons and ships (Schaller et al. Pg.499). The growth of these
industries allowed the Union to supply their military with things that were needed and gave them a better ability to pay for the war. With the Union being a lot more based on industrial labor, it was also able to sell goods to foreign countries in order to pay for the war. The industries grew throughout the war and allowed the Union to have a clear commercialized advantage that allowed them to win the Civil War against the Confederacy. The reconstruction that occurred after the Civil War was not based much in the North but instead in the South, but the effects of reconstruction can still be seen. The results of the boom for industries was due to the war so it is logical to infer that after the war ended, and some of these products no longer needed to be produced in large masses and so as a result industries suffered.
The changes that occurred to labor not only affected how different types of labor functioned but also American political ideas. The idea of Free Labor came to be because of the changes in the way labor was seen, as it became a commodity to be sold. Free Labor was the idea that working men who did not own land should be able to vote because although they do not own land, they sell their labor (Schaller et al. Pg.454). The previous ideology in voting was that only men with land could vote since property-less men might call for land redistribution if given the right to vote (Schaller et al. Pg.454). This was frightening to men in power because property was the main building block of who a person was and a person of high class owned property while someone of lower class did not. To bring forth the idea that property-less men could vote, brought fear to men who had the ability to vote as it meant they would have less influence on the government. However, it was also an ideology that frightened the people in power themselves as they were voted by their peers meaning the wealthy voted for the wealthy but a person of a lesser class may vote for someone else to take their position. Although it brought fear to the British, this type of ideology could no longer exist because of the way that labor was seen in the United States. Free labor was also an idea of independence as it allowed people to bargain with their labor and be independent. Free Labor was something more accepted by the North as it had more prominence there than the South as the ideology was based on wage based workers. This free labor idea did triumph in the United States as soon enough virtually all white men were able to vote by 1824 and by 1828 more men were eligible to vote in the United States than anywhere in the world (Schaller et al. Pg. 341). Labor changes did not only influence politics but also influenced the attitudes of people and consequently also influenced society.
As labor changed and the factory system became more prominent, the worker’s attitude toward their co-workers solidified. The growth of the factory system resulted in production moving out of the master’s home and so the contact between the workers and the owners of the company diminished and contact with others in similar economic positions increased (Schaller et al. Pg.371). This close proximity with each other let them connect and see each other as one entity. This brought in a society that banded workers together and allowed them to protest for better wages and working conditions. Men and women went on strike as a last resort and as these protests occurred over working conditions a bigger rift was created between the owners and workers (Schaller et al Pg.371). The development of the attitude that labor was a commodity created a class system based society where the working class and middle class came into existence. A class system previous to the 1830s was denied by elites and artisans but with industrial growth it was evident that this was untrue (Schaller et al. Pg.371). Most Americans saw the rise of a working class in existence due to industrial changes as people began to become wage workers and thus entered into a working class (Schaller et al. Pg. 371). With the industrial growth established, Americans saw an opportunity to move up the ladder and the middle class came into existence (Schaller et al. Pg.373). The middle class was a part of the community that needed to work but worked in white color jobs due to the growth of companies as they began to need office workers (Schaller et al. Pg.373). This caused the middle class to be created as they were in a different economic bracket than the worker class and could differentiate themselves from blue collar workers. Meanwhile, in the South the need for slave labor intensified. The attitude that southerners held in regards to slave labor was largely based on financial stability since they relied heavily on the labor slaves provided. Southerners sought for a justification to the reasoning behind slave labor and so they began to push the idea of white supremacy. The pro-slavery argument was based on the idea of racial supremacy which prominent scientists, such as Harvard’s Agassiz promoted (Schaller et al. Pg.391). They tried to justify racial supremacy with a scientific explanation which connected intelligence to skull size and since slaves had smaller skulls they believed they were less intelligent than white Americans (Schaller et al. Pg.391). Others based their justification in religion and referenced the bible citing the story of Ham as prove that God made black people to serve white people (Schaller et al. Pg.391). These sort of justifications led to a society believing in white supremacy and a society that allowed one human to be able to own another. The ways that society was influenced were not only based on the attitude people had but also the region in which people lived. While the United States was a unified country there were differences between the North and South with labor. The most egregious difference being that the North relied on wage labor while the South relied on slave labor. This difference drew a barrier between them and allowed them to differentiate between one another as the labor they practiced were completely different. This separation created a society where Americans saw themselves as different from other Americans which was intensified with the Civil War.
Changes to labor, mainly due to technology, affected artisan, slave, and industrial labor. Changing the way these types of labors functioned, the changes in labor also introduced the free labor discussion, furthermore, it also affected society. The changes that occurred after the American Revolution in the United States changed not only how labor works, but how people thought of labor and in some ways its value. New ideas and effects on society also occurred but they were not intentional effects but instead results that take place when something like labor is transformed as it was in the years after the American Revolution. Labor developed and underwent many changes as technology revolutionized it, but the effects on labor trickled down into every part of the lives of the colonist even after the work day was over.
to labor which shaped society.
In the beginning of the growth of the U.S. market, artisan labor grew. Some artisans were able to begin producing goods in large quantities and selling it locally or internationally. A perfect example of this was butter, which at first women made only for the use of the family but as they made surplus they began selling it between farms (Schaller et al. Pg.330). More and more women began to specialize in butter making and produced large quantities to sell as commodity (Schaller et al. Pg.330).The stable price of butter provided farming families an extra income. The making of butter was a type of artisan skill because it was made at home instead of a factory. With the growth of the Market Economy, this artisan labor grew. It revealed that the expansion of a market economy was in the beginning a good thing for artisan labor but it soon changed as the factory system in the U.S. increased. The factory system of production created negative effects for artisan labor as artisan broke-down. The reason of the artisan system breakdown was because the “burgeoning use of steam power and mechanical reproduction in the early 1800s allowed factory owners to underprice and out produce artisans” (Schaller et al. Pg.369). The production in a factory was also quicker as it was multiple workers creating a product. When artisan labor was broken down, most artisans became wage laborers whose outcome depended on the situation they found themselves in with their bosses (Schaller et al. Pg. 339). A possible positive outcome for artisans would be that now as a wage laborer they would be able to bargain with an honest employer who observed the rules of their contract (Schaller et al. Pg.370). This would be beneficial because they could earn a steady wage that would allow them to not just work to be able to keep their families alive. A negative outcome would be that employers would not recognize their contracts and pay them poorly and as a result they would be earning less money than previously (Schaller et al. Pg. 370). The negative outcome seemed to be more common because wages declined. For example, in New York real wages among the major trades declined through the 1830s and 1840s. (Schaller et al. Pg.370). Another negative outcome is that through the factory system there could no longer be any kind of new artisans as wage laborers only focused on one part of the production and only knew how to do that part of an entire process that artisans before would know and complete (Schaller et al. Pg. 370).Artisan labor was mostly eradicated through the factory system as it was no longer needed, and as a result, this sector seized to exist.
While artisan labor slowly died, slave labor intensified with the changes that occurred after the American Revolution. These results were positive for some and negative for others. The southerners who owned slaves enjoyed the growth of slave labor as it brought them more profit, but on the other hand, it affected the slaves who labored in the plantation negatively. The invention of the cotton gin allowed for cotton to be produced more quickly and with the improvements of Eli Whitney, the cotton gin resulted in the number of cotton grown to double each decade after 1800. The demand of cotton also grew and made the southerners think it was “King” because it was imported by multiple European powers (Schaller et al. Pg.482). The demand of cotton resulted in the demand of labor. This high demand of labor created more work for the slaves as they now had the job to grow more cotton than they were used to. It can be inferred that this type of activity was much more strenuous. It also increased the internal slave trade as the need for slaves in the South increased, which caused not only death to the slaves who were forced to go through a second passage made of long marches, but it also broke families apart (Schaller et al. Pg. 375). A new practice that appeared due to the factory system is the rental of slaves. The Rental Market was the practice of slave owners renting out their slaves to factories to work in, this grew quickly and became a prominent practice. The Rental Market grew so much so that 1/3 of workers in Tobacco factories were slaves (Schaller et al. Pg. 448). The increase of the rental market allowed slaves some freedom and expanded slave labor to not just southern plantations. Masters hired out their slaves to companies which would result in the slave working in a factory and with this a slave could have a little more autonomy as they were not supervised after the work day ended (Schaller et al. Pg. 448).) At the end of the Civil war free African Americans had few options on their path as they could only became wage workers, rent land to farm for themselves or practice sharecropping (Schaller et al. Pg.508). Sharecropping became popular as slaves would continue to grow for their masters but gained autonomy because they earned 50% of what was sold and were the ones who decided when to work on the land (Schaller et al. Pg.524). African Americans did not gain much from either becoming a wage worker or participating in sharecropping as they still suffered from unfair contracts in the South. Furthermore, as slave labor increased and then was outlawed in the South, industrial labor seemed to also grow in the Unites States.
Industrial labor grew during the Industrial Revolution and the creation of the Factory System.
In a world view, a worker benefited from the industrial revolution as comparably American workers enjoyed 40 percent higher wages than their counterparts in England (Schaller et al. Pg.353). Their wages were higher than others but there were still negative effects. Working conditions were poor and dangerous to the workers and the people hired were not only adults but also children who were expected to work just the same as an adult worker. While workers were affected both positively and negatively, industries grew and increased the need for industrial labor. For example, the cotton industry grew and the creation of mill girls appeared, who worked in mills weaving cotton (Schaller et al. Pg.382). Industrial labor was also interconnected with slave labor as both participated in the cotton and tobacco industry. For example, there would be no mill girls in the cotton industry if there was no slave labor available to pick cotton in the South. The growth of industrial labor caused American cities to grow as a result because people followed to work in factories. The result of the growing American cities allowed rich city dwellers to be able to hire someone to do things that they would normally do or would still be done in a more rural setting (Schaller et al. Pg.382).Women filled these role as they became “cooks, cleaners, launderers, seamstress, and all-purpose domestic” work (Schaller et al. Pg.382). Industrial labor was also practiced in the South but it was much more prominent in the North. The North’s industrial labor allowed the North to be able to win the Civil War as their industrial sector was larger than the South. During, the Civil War, the North had a boom of industrial labor(Schaller et al Pg.499). Companies produced things like meat, oil extractions, and all type of military supplies from uniforms to weapons and ships (Schaller et al. Pg.499). The growth of these
industries allowed the Union to supply their military with things that were needed and gave them a better ability to pay for the war. With the Union being a lot more based on industrial labor, it was also able to sell goods to foreign countries in order to pay for the war. The industries grew throughout the war and allowed the Union to have a clear commercialized advantage that allowed them to win the Civil War against the Confederacy. The reconstruction that occurred after the Civil War was not based much in the North but instead in the South, but the effects of reconstruction can still be seen. The results of the boom for industries was due to the war so it is logical to infer that after the war ended, and some of these products no longer needed to be produced in large masses and so as a result industries suffered.
The changes that occurred to labor not only affected how different types of labor functioned but also American political ideas. The idea of Free Labor came to be because of the changes in the way labor was seen, as it became a commodity to be sold. Free Labor was the idea that working men who did not own land should be able to vote because although they do not own land, they sell their labor (Schaller et al. Pg.454). The previous ideology in voting was that only men with land could vote since property-less men might call for land redistribution if given the right to vote (Schaller et al. Pg.454). This was frightening to men in power because property was the main building block of who a person was and a person of high class owned property while someone of lower class did not. To bring forth the idea that property-less men could vote, brought fear to men who had the ability to vote as it meant they would have less influence on the government. However, it was also an ideology that frightened the people in power themselves as they were voted by their peers meaning the wealthy voted for the wealthy but a person of a lesser class may vote for someone else to take their position. Although it brought fear to the British, this type of ideology could no longer exist because of the way that labor was seen in the United States. Free labor was also an idea of independence as it allowed people to bargain with their labor and be independent. Free Labor was something more accepted by the North as it had more prominence there than the South as the ideology was based on wage based workers. This free labor idea did triumph in the United States as soon enough virtually all white men were able to vote by 1824 and by 1828 more men were eligible to vote in the United States than anywhere in the world (Schaller et al. Pg. 341). Labor changes did not only influence politics but also influenced the attitudes of people and consequently also influenced society.
As labor changed and the factory system became more prominent, the worker’s attitude toward their co-workers solidified. The growth of the factory system resulted in production moving out of the master’s home and so the contact between the workers and the owners of the company diminished and contact with others in similar economic positions increased (Schaller et al. Pg.371). This close proximity with each other let them connect and see each other as one entity. This brought in a society that banded workers together and allowed them to protest for better wages and working conditions. Men and women went on strike as a last resort and as these protests occurred over working conditions a bigger rift was created between the owners and workers (Schaller et al Pg.371). The development of the attitude that labor was a commodity created a class system based society where the working class and middle class came into existence. A class system previous to the 1830s was denied by elites and artisans but with industrial growth it was evident that this was untrue (Schaller et al. Pg.371). Most Americans saw the rise of a working class in existence due to industrial changes as people began to become wage workers and thus entered into a working class (Schaller et al. Pg. 371). With the industrial growth established, Americans saw an opportunity to move up the ladder and the middle class came into existence (Schaller et al. Pg.373). The middle class was a part of the community that needed to work but worked in white color jobs due to the growth of companies as they began to need office workers (Schaller et al. Pg.373). This caused the middle class to be created as they were in a different economic bracket than the worker class and could differentiate themselves from blue collar workers. Meanwhile, in the South the need for slave labor intensified. The attitude that southerners held in regards to slave labor was largely based on financial stability since they relied heavily on the labor slaves provided. Southerners sought for a justification to the reasoning behind slave labor and so they began to push the idea of white supremacy. The pro-slavery argument was based on the idea of racial supremacy which prominent scientists, such as Harvard’s Agassiz promoted (Schaller et al. Pg.391). They tried to justify racial supremacy with a scientific explanation which connected intelligence to skull size and since slaves had smaller skulls they believed they were less intelligent than white Americans (Schaller et al. Pg.391). Others based their justification in religion and referenced the bible citing the story of Ham as prove that God made black people to serve white people (Schaller et al. Pg.391). These sort of justifications led to a society believing in white supremacy and a society that allowed one human to be able to own another. The ways that society was influenced were not only based on the attitude people had but also the region in which people lived. While the United States was a unified country there were differences between the North and South with labor. The most egregious difference being that the North relied on wage labor while the South relied on slave labor. This difference drew a barrier between them and allowed them to differentiate between one another as the labor they practiced were completely different. This separation created a society where Americans saw themselves as different from other Americans which was intensified with the Civil War.
Changes to labor, mainly due to technology, affected artisan, slave, and industrial labor. Changing the way these types of labors functioned, the changes in labor also introduced the free labor discussion, furthermore, it also affected society. The changes that occurred after the American Revolution in the United States changed not only how labor works, but how people thought of labor and in some ways its value. New ideas and effects on society also occurred but they were not intentional effects but instead results that take place when something like labor is transformed as it was in the years after the American Revolution. Labor developed and underwent many changes as technology revolutionized it, but the effects on labor trickled down into every part of the lives of the colonist even after the work day was over.