Gender Roles During The Industrial Revolution

However due to these conditions, laws were eventually passed setting minimum age requirements for workers, creating safety standards, and requiring schooling for all children. Schools were soon opened for children whose parents worked in the factories. Workers began to organize and advocate for safer working conditions, which eventually lead to the first labor unions. Factory owners became rich very quickly, and that wealth caused a shift in power- from the previous landowners, to the new factory owners.
However, these newly wealthy individuals weren’t always happy with these new regulations put on them by the government. For example, because they dominated the economy with their money, powerful men such as J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and John D. Rockefeller began to influence politics- putting their money in the hands of those that they wanted in power. When William Jennings Bryan decided to run as the Democratic candidate for the President of the United States, Morgan, Rockefeller, and Carnegie grew increasingly concerned that the policies that Bryan would implement would cost them money. Bryan spoke out strongly
Before the Industrial Revolution, families were interdependent on the roles of each other to survive, and each family member worked together to ensure the happiness of the family as a whole. Most work occurred at home or on the land belonging to the family and there was very little distinction between the roles of women and men, or between work and home. As people moved to the cities, work began to be something that was performed away from the home. Men were considered to be more valuable workers and therefore were paid more. Women were seen as less valuable than men, and were expected to have less of a role in the public sphere. This lead to the idea that a man’s place is out in the public, and a woman’s place is at home with her