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Development of the Factory System

Development of the Factory System. Lecture 1 Implications of Factory Production. Administrative. Quiz Reminder Essay Reminder Reading for next class. Review. Importance of Unfree Labor in the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods

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Development of the Factory System

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  1. Development of the Factory System Lecture 1 Implications of Factory Production

  2. Administrative • Quiz Reminder • Essay Reminder • Reading for next class

  3. Review • Importance of Unfree Labor in the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods • Resistance of all forms of labor, free and unfree, to abuse by employers • Power of employers over even free employees extensive. Included • Power to prevent them from leaving their work • Power to use corporal punishment • Workers and Political Parties

  4. Today • Factory Production • Challenges factory production presented to employers and workers • Early factories in the United States • Opposition to factory production • Massachusetts shoe strike of 1860 • Issues of Concern to Workers 1800-60

  5. I. Factory Production • What is a factory? • Is factory production different from other kinds of wage labor? Other kinds of unfree labor? • In what ways?

  6. Factory Production • How is factory production different from handicraft production? • How is factory production different from farm production or common labor? • What challenges does it create for the employer? • What challenges does it create for the workers?

  7. II. Challenges for the employer • Assembly of a work force • Training and discipline of the work force

  8. Challenges for the workers • Work life? • Home life?

  9. III. The Early Factory System • Where and when was the first factory built in the United States? • What were the principal early factory industries in the United States? • What was a “panic” and how did it affect factory employment? • When were there panics before the Civil War?

  10. IV. Opposition to the Factory System • Who was opposed? • What forms did opposition take?

  11. V. Massachusetts Shoe Strike 1860 • Which goal did the strikers achieve (at least in part) and which goal did they completely fail to achieve? • Achieved an increase in wages from many of the manufacturers • Failed to get manufacturers to sign the “bill of wages”

  12. VI. Issues of Concern to Workers: 1800-1860 • Mechanics’ Lien Laws • Closed Shop • Ten-hour day • Managerial Physical Abuse • Others • Voting rights for unpropertied male citizens • Free public education • Debt imprisonment

  13. Next Time • Spread of the factory system • Rising resistance to employers

  14. Development of the Factory System Lecture 2 The Spread of the Factory System

  15. Administrative • Reading for next class – Genovese Essay in B&L

  16. Review • Factory production began only in 1790 • Challenges of factory production for both the employers and the workers

  17. Today • How Did Workers View Their Situation? • Employer Responses • The Lowell System

  18. I. How Did Workers View Their Situation? • Comparisons to abused workers of Europe • Comparisons to slaves • White slaves • Wage slaves • Existence of chattel slavery may have deflected attention from the abuses suffered by wage earners

  19. II. Responses of Employers • The need to compete with British manufacturers • The need to compete with slave labor in the south

  20. Employers Today: Analogies • Issues • Unionization • Health Insurance • Paid family leave • Arguments • Prevents the flexibility needed in today’s global market place • Increases costs damaging our ability to compete

  21. Validity of Employer Arguments? • Our unionization already among the lowest in the developed world • Others already have national health insurance • Others already have paid family leave • What family leave do we have? • Do we have a shorter work year than our competitors?

  22. III. The Lowell System • Method of organizing textile factories • Based in Lowell Massachusetts • Staffing – mostly young unmarried women • Worked 12-hour days six days a week • Lived in dormitories operated by the employers • Not allowed out unchaperoned • Only had Sunday off if went to church

  23. Rationale for the Lowell System • Workers inherently lazy and require close supervision and coercion • The working class is inherently immoral • Young women need to help their families until the are married but also need their virtue protected • Employers get labor in return for protecting young women and keeping them employed

  24. Next Time • Begin detailed discussion of slave labor in the United States • Role of slavery and role of race and racism

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