Industrial Revolution Working Conditions

The Industrial revolution was a period of inventions and economic expansions that occurred in Britain in the eighteenth century. With time and money efficient innovations, factories were on the rise and began to take over cities. Eventually, the Industrial revolution lead to the deterioration of working conditions for the poor. It is important to understand how the Industrial revolution shaped working conditions because the advancements that took place during this era lead to the current workplace laws and regulations. This paper will explore what made the industrial revolution such a dreary period for working class citizens, the working conditions labourers experienced, and the reason the government introduced the Factory Act. The industrial
It is argued that they were virtually “invisible players” in the industrial revolution. Sending children to work was what working families did to increase their income and help them get buy. However, if children were indeed invisible, laws surrounding the age one can work likely would not have come to be. Initially, children were advantageous employees in mills because the first machines were not very large, and their small and nimble hands were much more efficient in operating the machinery. Of course the machines eventually became larger, but this did not stop the manufacturers from employing children. The age at which a child was sent to work varied, but it would be the youngest age at which they possibly could work. Yes, children have always worked throughout history, primarily in their family’s homes or farms, but “When children do become more visible, in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it is chiefly as workers in the cotton factories”. It was even believed to be “normal” to have children working in the labour force if the number of children in the given population was high. The normalization of children in the workplace was used as an excuse by optimists who were attempting to deny the normalization of child
Those who are optimistic in their beliefs of the effects of the revolution argue that children working was not a new occurrence of the industrial revolution as they looked “to eighteenth-century evidence in support.” They also argue that there was “little room for any increase in child employment in the Industrial Revolution, and … there may have even been a decrease”. Although it is likely that there was little increase in the percentage children who worked, the duration and intensity of shifts increased. The evidence that the rest of this paper will discuss focuses on a pessimistic view, which believes virtually every child in the working class was sent to work, and while at work they were