Working Conditions Associated With The Industrial Revolution

Working condition were as bad as those in the Jungle across the us from end of the 19th to the beginning of 20th century. They introduced the division of labor into their meatpacking plants, replacing the skilled “all-around butcher” with a “killing gang of 157 men divided into 78 different ‘trades,’ each man performing the same minute operation a thousand times during a full workday.” The book portrays the objects poverty, harsh working conditions and often dangerous unsanitary living condition. The jungle showed the public what was going to the factories. It showed how the owners had no regard for worker safety nor public safety. People getting fingers cut off, being mixed in with meat bad/ diseased food, and child labor. In 1906,
Pre-industrial laborers faced risks from animals and hand tools, ladders and stairs. Industrialization substituted steam engines for animals, machines for hand tools, and elevators for ladders. But whether these new technologies generally worsened the dangers of work is unclear. What is clear is that nowhere was the new work associated with the industrial revolution more dangerous than in America. Long work hours and six-day weeks were another problem that has been improved upon since the early 1900s, according to Lebergott. Many workers worked from sunrise to sunset, Monday through Saturday. Many women and children working in factories in New York City worked 15-hour days. Today's 40-hour workweeks are much less taxing on the
Children were small, so they could get into tight spaces in mines and machinery where adults couldn't fit. Children were also easier to teach and control than adults, and they were less likely to refuse potentially dangerous work. Most advantageous, however, was the fact that children would work for considerably less money than adult workers would demand. The dangerous conditions children faced in these occupations led to a growing movement to ban or at least regulate child labor in the 1800s, and by 1900, the movement was gaining steam and many states placed restrictions on the type and length of work children could do. Ultimately, however, it took the Great Depression to end the child labor movement. With fewer jobs to go around, adults took priority in employment. In 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act provided national regulation of child labor. Children had always worked, especially in farming. But factory work was hard. A child with a factory job might work 12 to 18 hours a day, 6 days a week, to earn a dollar. Many children began working before the age of 7, tending machines in spinning mills or hauling heavy loads. The factories were often damp, dark, and dirty. Some children worked underground, in coal mines. The working children had no time to play or