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The Changing Workplace

The Changing Workplace. Ch. 8, Sect. 4 What problems were created for the emerging industrial workforce by changes in manufacturing in the 1800’s?. SHIFT FROM RURAL TO URBAN MANUFACTURING. Weaving factories end the “putting-out system” of the “cottage-industry” or production in homes

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The Changing Workplace

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  1. The Changing Workplace Ch. 8, Sect. 4 What problems were created for the emerging industrial workforce by changes in manufacturing in the 1800’s?

  2. SHIFT FROM RURAL TO URBAN MANUFACTURING • Weaving factories end the “putting-out system” of the “cottage-industry” or production in homes • Decline of hand-produced goods • Unskilled laborers replaces skilled laborers (masters, journeymen, and apprentices) • Factory products become cheaper, more available • Changes split families & traditional Communities

  3. Lowell, Massachusetts:Birthplace of American Industry • 1828: Women are 90% of the mill workforce • Mill owners use women b/c they are paid less • “Mill Girls” are primarily unmarried girls, supervised closely by female supervisors • Opportunity to earn money and leave the farm

  4. STRIKES AT LOWELL • Worked 12 hour day, 6 days a week • Poor wages, poor ventilation, poor conditions • 1834: Mill workers strike over a pay cut; it fails • 1836: Second strike over new pay cuts; it also fails. • 1844: Mill workers form Lowell Female Labor reform Association & petition state legislature. HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE: Women begin to organize for political and social change.

  5. Workers Seek Better Conditions • 1835: Nations first general strike in Philly (=a strike by skilled and unskilled workers) • Employers use “strikebreakers” to crush strikes, using poor immigrants • By 1840’s new immigrants are organizing their own strikes: • Irish Dockworkers strike in NY in 1840’s • Ladies Industrial Association, NY in 1845 (SEE HANDOUT ON IMMIGRATION)

  6. National Trades’ Union Workers, or journeymen, begin to organize collectively, rather than by specific trades  more bargaining power. • 1834: Journeymen from several industries organize the National Trades’ Union. • Courts declare the Unions illegal. • 1842: Mass. Supreme Court affirms worker’s rights in Commonwealth v. Hunt. • 1860: only 5,000 workers are unionized, though 20,000 participate in strikes

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