Impact of Classical Liberalism on 19th-Century Society: Exploitation and Struggle

Responding to Classical Liberalism The way of life can be free and beautiful. But we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls - has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in: machinery that gives abundance has left us in want.Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little: More than machinery we need humanity;More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. -- Charlie Chaplin

How did classical liberalism influence 19th – Century society? Outcome 2.6

Though those people living under the Classical Liberalism of the Industrial Revolution lived a more DEMOCRATIC existence, the goals of efficiency and the accumulation of wealth were more important than equality. • In the views of many, Classical Liberalism exploited many for the benefit of a few…

Assembly line = Profits

Workers are seen as a commodity

Factories and Workers’ Housing

Poverty, hunger, disease, crime

Work in the Mines... • Coal crucial to the Industrial Revolution • Before 1842 there were no protection laws regarding age limits, hours or conditions of work • Teams of women employed to use windlass to lift coal and workers. • Men refused to do such work.

CHILDREN WORKING IN MINES “I have been down six weeks and made 10 to 14 trips from the face to the top each day. I carry a full 56 lbs of coal in a wooden bucket. I work with sister Jesse and mother. It is dark the time we go” (girl 6 years old) “I have a belt around my waist, and a chain passing between my legs, and I go on my hands and feet. The road is very steep and we…hold onto anything we can…I am not as strong as I was…I have drawn til I had the skin off me…” (32 year old woman)

IN THE TEXTILE MILLS Youngest children usually employed as scavengers and piecers SCAVENGERS • picked up loose cotton from under machinery • extremely dangerous, children were expected to carry out the task while machines were still working PIECERS • children had to lean over spinning machines to repair broken threads • might walk 20 miles per day

UNCOMPLAINING ACCEPTANCE • Life, work conditions brutal and degrading • Poverty, periodic unemployment, over-crowded and inadequate housing, bad work conditions, restricted opportunities • High incidence of dismemberment, disease, death • Human existence is a struggle, survival is an end in itself • Fatalistic attitude, ‘God gives and God takes away’

CRIPPLED

PARISH (PAUPER) APPRENTICES Many parents -unwilling to allow children to work in textile factories. Labour shortage - factory owners had to find other ways of obtaining workers. Solution - buy children from orphanages and workhouses. Pauper apprentices - children signing contracts that virtually made them property of the factory owner Apprentices who ran away were in danger of being sent to prison…potential runaways were sometimes placed in irons Oliver Twist!

Who was Jacob Riis and what contribution did he make to improve the lives of the working poor? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHAp0omdSfk

Impact of Classical Liberalism on 19th-Century Society: Exploitation and Struggle