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. FILL IN THE BLANK Skilled workers are called __________.
The most experienced workers are called ________.
Young workers are called __________.
Early textile factories were built in __________, Massachusetts.
System of producing clothing at home was called the ________ - out system.

3. FILL IN THE BLANK
System of producing clothing at home was called the ________ - out system.
Young workers are called __________.
The most experienced workers are called ________.
Skilled workers are called __________.
Early textile factories were built in __________, Massachusetts.

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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.

7. 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

8. 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