1. Working Conditions

2. Goal of Today The objective of today will be to show what life was like for the workers in the factories.

3. What were factories like? Factories were uncomfortable places, they were –Dirty –Noisy –Poorly ventilated –Hot in the summer, cold in the winter –Poor sanitation –Dangerous, many machines did not have safety devices.

4. Injuries Occurred Often… This is a photo of children who were missing limbs

5. What would happen if you got hurt? Was there health insurance? Would workers get paid if they got hurt on the job? What would the factory do if someone got hurt?

6. Child Labor 5 year old children were often employed in the mills. Conditions in coal mines were particularly bad, women and children pulled carts through tunnels that were too low to allow a donkey or a grown man to pass through.

7. In the Coal Mines Jane Peacock Watson. "I have wrought in the bowels of the earth 33 years. I have been married 23 years and had nine children, six are alive and three died of typhus a few years since. Have had two dead born. Horse-work ruins the women; it crushes their haunches, bends their ankles and makes them old women at 40. "

11. Parliament Steps In By 1832 conditions had gotten so bad that members of Parliament need to step in, so to get a better idea of what was going on, they interviewed people who had worked in the mills. After that they interviewed some doctors to see how factory work stunted the growth of children. Below are some excerpts from the interviews

12. From John Allett- had started working in the textile factory at 14, he was 53 in 1832 when he spoke to Parliament. Question: Do more accidents take place in the later end of the day? Answer: I have known more accidents at the beginning of the day rather than at the later part. A child was working wool, that is, to prepare the wool for the machine, but the strap caught him, as he was hardly awake, and it carried him into the machinery. We found one limb in one place, one in another, one in another, and he was cut to bits. –Why do you think more accidents happen in the morning?

13. Dr. Samuel Smith, a doctor who saw firsthand how children were permanently damaged from working in factories. “Up to twelve or thirteen years of age, the bones are so soft that they will bend in any direction… Long continued standing also has a very injurious effect upon the ankles. But the principle effect which I have seen produced is this way have been on the knees. By long continued standing the knees become so weak that they turn inwards, producing deformity”

15. 23 Year Old Elizabeth Bently- a factory worker Question: “What time did you begin work at the factory?”---- “When I was six years old” Question: “What were your hours of labor in that mill?”---- “From five in the morning till nine at night” Question: “Were children beaten?”-- Yes Question: “What was the reason for that?”-- “The overseer was angry” Question: “Had the children committed any fault?”-- they were too slow.

16. The Factory Act, 1833 The Factory Act, 1833 was an attempt to establish a normal working day in the textile industry. The way in which it proposed to do this was the following: The working day was to start at 5.30 a.m. and cease at 8.30 p.m. A young person (aged thirteen to eighteen) might not be employed beyond any period of twelve hours, less one and a half for meals; and a child (aged nine to thirteen) beyond any period of nine hours. From 8.30 p.m. to 5.30 a.m.; that is during the night; the employment of such persons was altogether prohibited.

17. The Factory Act of 1844 The Factory Act of 1844 is an extremely important one in the history of family legislation. The Act reduced the hours of work for children between eight and thirteen to six and a half a day, either in the morning or afternoon, no child being allowed to work in both on the same day, except on alternate days, and then only for ten hours. Young persons and women (now included for the first time) were to have the same hours, i.e. not more than twelve for the first five days of the week (with one and a half out for meals), and nine on Saturday.

18. So wasn’t it fun being a factory worker? Activities 1.Lets watch 2 clips from a documentary on the Bread and Roses strike in Lawrence, MA 2.Analyze the primary sources. 3.Put together a newscast

20. http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/victorians/sta ndard/index.shtmlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/victorians/sta ndard/index.shtml