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The Changing Workplace

The Changing Workplace. Pgs. 240 - 245. Rural Manufacturing. Putting - out system: manufacturers provided the materials for goods to be produced in the home. Then brought the finished articles to the manufacturer who paid them by the piece and gave them new materials for the next batch.

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The Changing Workplace

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  1. The Changing Workplace Pgs. 240 - 245

  2. Rural Manufacturing • Putting - out system: manufacturers provided the materials for goods to be produced in the home. • Then brought the finished articles to the manufacturer who paid them by the piece and gave them new materials for the next batch. • Original factories were only able to produce thread.

  3. Early Factories • Artisans usually worked in shops attached to their homes: • Masters: most experienced in the trade • Journeymen: skilled workers employed by masters • Apprentices: young workers learning the craft • Most replaced by interchangeable parts and factories: didn’t need specialists as much

  4. The Lowell Mill • “mill girls” – unmarried women under 30 who worked in the New England factories • Behavior, church attendance, and curfews monitored. • By 1828 made up 9/10ths of the workforce • Only left factory to get married • Could pay women lower wages then men.

  5. Conditions at Lowell • Workday started at 5am (wake up) 7am (start in factories) 12pm (dinner break) 1-7pm (factory) • Heat, darkness, windows nailed shut, smoke from machines. • Hard to breath, extremely hot in the summer. • Managers didn’t care…considered their workers as machines not people • Increased production from 1836-1850 and lowered workforce.

  6. Strikes at Lowell • 1834: wages lowered so workers staged a strike • Company won and the leaders were fired. • 1836: boarding costs hired so it would be a 12.6% pay cut • Company won and leaders fired • 1844 Sarah Bagley founded the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association to help make laws to aid women at the mills. • Didn’t make that many gains, but still was able to advocate for a 10 hour workday.

  7. Immigration Increases • Skilled workers from different trades started to ally themselves with each other to win strikes. • Often lost strikes because immigrants took the job for less money and company owners were more than happy to hire them. • Most immigrants from Ireland (potato famine) and Germany • Germans were skilled at farming and settled in Illinois, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Ohio.

  8. Immigration Increases cont. • Irish immigrants faced a lot of discrimination because they were Catholic and settled in the cities taking jobs for lower wages. • Irish immigrants took active roles in unions. • New York City’s most famous strike in 1840’s organized by Irish workers.

  9. National Trades’ Union • Journeymen formed trade unions specific to each trade. • Wanted to standardize wages and conditions for each industry. • 10 hour workday. • National Trade’s Union: represented a variety of occupations. • Massachusetts Supreme Court supported workers' right to strike in the case of Commonwealth v Hunt • Journeymen could act “in such a manner as best to subserve their own interests”

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