Female Mill Workers in England and Japan

The Industrial Revolution was the greatest transformation period in human history. When people think about the Industrial revolution, they think about big steel, machines, and railroads. What’s missing are the exhausted, overworked laborers that operated the machinery that made things run. A prime example is the female textile mill workers from England and Japan. In the textile industry, women and young girls were the main employees. The main reason for this is that nimble fingers were needed to tend the spinning and weaving machines. Originally spinning and weaving were done at home or small spin shops but the Industrial revolution changed that by bringing house spinning and weaving to factories. With the mass production of textiles, women were given a chance to actually work for wage. This seemed like a grand opportunity but this work experience was difficult for these women. The experiences of the Japanese and English female workers were in fact similar. Both of which had to deal with long working hours with little pay, sexual and physical abuse from male supervisors, and hardship with their families over their occupation.
The work day for both these nationalities consisted of the same unreasonableness and unfairness. In England (In Document E), women had horrendous working hours. On weekdays work in a factory work begin at 5:30 am and finish at 8 pm which is a total of 14 hours and 30 minutes. Then in Japan, a work day would start at 4:05 am until 7:30 pm, for a total of 14 hours and 20 minutes. Also to add on to the burden of being exhausted, women were treated unequally when it came to wages. For example (In Document F), a female worker in England questions her wage when she notices that her youngest child makes more than her. She makes a total of 2 shillings a week while her child makes 2 shillings and 6 pence. This inequality also affects the working women of Japan. Japanese males and females work identical jobs, but (In Document H) there is a difference