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The changing workplace

The changing workplace. Chapter 8 Section 4. Industry Changes Work. Rural Manufacturing Cottage Industry - manufacturers provide materials for goods to be produced in the home. Women completed most of the work

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The changing workplace

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  1. The changing workplace Chapter 8 Section 4

  2. Industry Changes Work • Rural Manufacturing • Cottage Industry- manufacturers provide materials for goods to be produced in the home. • Women completed most of the work • Bring finished product back to manufacturer to get paid by the piece, and receive more material • Replaced by the power looms in textile factories like Waltham and Lowell MA.

  3. Industry Changes Work • Early Factories • Factories replaced the cottage industries as a mean of manufacturing • Made household items drastically cheaper • New machines allowed unskilled workers to perform tasks that would previously be done by skilled artisans • Unskilled laborers shifted from farm work to repetitive factory work.

  4. Farm Worker to Factory Worker • The Lowell Mill & the Lowell Girls • 9/10 of work force in NE mills were women • Mill owners hire women so they can pay them less then men • Better job then alternatives for women: • Sewing, teaching, and domestic work • Most women only worked in the mills for a couple of years

  5. Farm Worker to Factory Worker • Conditions at Lowell • Started at 5am • Heat, darkness, and poor ventilation led to illnesses • Windows would be nailed shut to keep in humidity • Made the mills in the summer like ovens and in the winter filled with smoke from the oil lamps • 1830s conditions got worse • Faster work pass, less break time, higher fines, and lower wages • Led to the women of Lowell to strike

  6. Farm Worker to Factory Worker • Strikes at Lowell • “UNION IS POWER” • 1834 women refuse to work for reduces wages • Management threaten to hire new local girls so they return to work for reduced wages and, fire the strike leaders • 1836- women strike due to board charge raises (equal to a 12.5 % pay cut) • Company prevails again….

  7. Workers Seek Better Conditions • Conditions for all workers declined in the 1830s • Strikes were ineffective due to strike breaker who would work long hours for little money • Usually immigrants who were escaping an even worse situation

  8. Workers Seek Better Conditions • Immigration Increases • European immigration drastically increases between 1830-1860 • 1845-1855; 3 million immigrants added to the 20million population, most coming from Germany and Ireland • Immigrants avoided the South • Slavery limited economic potential

  9. Workers Seek Better Conditions • The Famine • Irish potato famine drove nearly 1 million immigrants to the US and killed another 1 million • Irish immigrants faced harsh discrimination • Catholic and poor • Protestants feared a Catholic take over of the US

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