Chapter 12 Section 2: Changes in Working Life

Mills Change Workers Lives Many mill owners could not find enough people to work in the factories because other ___ were available. To confront this, Slater and other owners hired entire families to moved to Pawtucket to work in the mills. This practice allowed Slater to fill his labor needs at a ___cost. _____as well as adults worked in the mills. On most farms children worked to help their families. Therefore, few people _____about the hiring of children to work in factories. The machines made many tasks in the mill simple enough for children to do. Mill owners profited because they paid children low ____. To attract families, Slater built housing for the workers and provided them with a company store for them, and gave the workers credit for the store that they earned through work. This system became known as the ____ Island System.

The Lowell System Not all mill owners followed this system. Francis Cabot Lowell, a businessman from New England, developed a very ____approach. The Lowell system was based on water-powered textile mills that employed young unmarried ___ from local farms. Lowell looked at the costs of running a mill, and decided to build boardinghouses, providing his workers with a ___ and meals. The young millworkers soon became known as ___ girls. The mills paid them between $2 and $4 a week, of which the workers paid $1.25 for room and board. These wages were much ____ than women could earn in other jobs. Women came from all over to work there, and typically worked for 4 years. The work was hard, however, with work hours being hrs. long. Cotton dust caused health problems also.

Workers Organize As factories spread, shopkeepers struggled to compete with the lower priced goods and often had to hire more workers at lower wages. The wages in the factories also dropped as more people competed for fewer available jobs. Immigration also brought a wave of people from poorer countries who were willing to work for low pay, and most of them moved into the Northeast where the factories were.

The beginning of Trade Unions Facing low wages and the ____ of losing their jobs, skilled workers created trade unions, groups that tried to ___ pay and working conditions. Most employers didn’t want to hire union workers, because they thought that the higher cost of union employees prevented competition with other manufacturers. Sometimes labor unions staged protests called ____, where the workers refused to work until employers met their demands. Most strikes were not successful, however, since courts and police often supported companies not union members.

Labor Reform Efforts A strong ___in the union movement was that of millworker Sarah G. Bagley. She founded the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association in Her two main goals were to influence an investigation into working conditions in Massachusetts and to obtain a ___ hour workday. President Van Buren granted a 10 hr. workday in 1840 for federal employees, and Bagley wanted this rule to apply to private businesses (where women and men worked hours a day). Over time the unions achieved the 10 hour workday in several New England states, but they kept fighting to improve conditions for workers and to outlaw child labor in the coming decades.