ShmoopTube

Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.

Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos

U.S. History 1877-Present 3: Industrial Era Working Conditions and Child Labor 16802 Views


Share It!


Description:

Think your chores are bad? During the first Industrial Revolution, children as young as ten often worked more than eight hours a day for less than six dollars a month. Yugh. We're tired just thinking about it.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:03

By the time the first Industrial Revolution got fired up

00:06

machines were making everything iron for construction chemicals for medicines and [Machines making iron]

00:11

cleansers cement glass paper list keeps going huge machines even made parts for

00:17

other huge machines there's something kind of creepy about that well factories

00:21

built mechanized farm equipment like tractors and Reapers to industrialize [Tractors driving in a field]

00:26

agriculture iron factories produced train and the track to run them on

00:30

industrializing transportation that's why we call it a revolution everything [Train travelling on the tracks]

00:35

about everything changed how people traveled changed how people got clothes

00:39

and food changed and most crucially the meaning of work changed work used to be [Woman looking through clothing rack]

00:45

something everyone did together ninety-nine point nine percent of humans

00:49

before 1750 or farmers they lived on small family farms and raised food to [Man and son farming]

00:55

eat in to sell they made their own clothes and shoes candles plates and

00:59

soap making stuff by hand wasn't a fun hobby for yuppies on the weekend back

01:04

then it was how most people survived and the thing was that people made all this [People constructing a house]

01:08

stuff together older more experienced people taught younger people how to do

01:13

all these things everything was hands-on and very personal people had a close

01:17

relationship with the people they work with they usually called one of them mom [Mom and kids cooking]

01:21

once machines took over however things got a lot less personal I don't really

01:26

we should say the humanity of individual workers kind of stopped mattering much

01:31

at all let's just say that when the motto was the machine must keep running

01:34

well if the machine was stuck a boss would say jab your hand in there and [Man fixing a machine]

01:39

wait a little round yeah well it's probably no surprise at the end of the

01:42

day there were a lot of hands on the floor or reps you know mixed into the [Man carrying bucket with hand in]

01:45

soap the machine was making gives a new meaning to ants out there people doesn't

01:49

it think about it with no safety regulations or laws protecting workers

01:53

horrific workplace accidents were basically businesses you [Man running around factory with bucket on his head]

01:57

why did this kind of horrible treatment occur money of course factory owners

02:03

could make a ton of money producing manufactured goods so they put the

02:07

machines that made the goods first ahead of human workers and out of necessity [Injured man working in a factory]

02:11

the factory workers did too they could make more money working in a factory

02:15

than they had ever dreamed possible working on a farm a little dismemberment

02:20

here and there an arm leg now seems like a risk worth taking if it kept your [Man stood beside KFC bucket]

02:23

family fed where else could a ten-year-old girl make six bucks a month

02:27

in the 19th century yep you heard us right a ten-year-old girl on top of

02:32

there being no safety regulation there also weren't any child labor laws most [Children working in factory]

02:37

factory workers in the first Industrial Revolution were young women or girls why

02:42

didn't they want big strong men to work in the factories because women an [Man reading a book]

02:45

especially young girl had the least amount of power in free white society so

02:51

they were the easiest to horrifically exploit and underpay many of these young

02:55

women even lived in the factories and they had to pay rent for the privilege

02:58

of being there oh and they also had to learn to apologize if they gummed up the [Woman crying with bandaged arm]

03:02

work by losing a finger how dare you dinguses hey

Up Next

Why Does the Constitution Still Work for Us?
5723 Views

Ever heard of a "living document"? They eat and breathe just like the rest of us! They even walk around on their own two legs. Okay, fine—maybe t...

Related Videos

The Puritans and the Division of Church and State
1280 Views

If the Puritans had gotten their way, religion would play a much larger role in lawmaking these days. Want to know more? Watch the video for all th...

Shays' Rebellion
6383 Views

What happened between the creation of the Articles of Confederation and the ratification of the current U.S. Constitution? This video analyzes the...

There's More Than One Way to Crack a Modernist Egg
539 Views

The Modernists thought the world had a lot of problems, and they were intent on fixing them—or at least talking about fixing them. Unfortunately,...

Federalism
2532 Views

This video explains Federalism and the quest for a fair balance between state and national power. It covers the progression and compromises of Fede...