Industrial Revolution Dbq Essay

Children at the young age of nine were eligible to work in the factories during the Industrial Revolution. These children were forced to work nine hours a day, for a daily wage of thirty cents. During the Industrial Revolution, there was a common pattern of child labor throughout mills and factories. The Industrial Revolution changed the way people produced and consumed products, along with their jobs and the way they worked. The Industrial Revolution took place in the late seventeen hundred, and it originated in Great Britain. However, it quickly spread to Japan, Belgium, Germany, and the United States. The purpose of the Industrial Revolution was for the ‘domestic system’ to be improved to increase the amount of product being produced, while

However, the benefits of the Industrial Revolution do not outweigh the harms because the factory conditions were dangerous, the pay was low, and the poor living conditions left concerning effects. One of the many reasons why the benefits of the Industrial Revolution did not outweigh the harms was because the work environment was highly unsafe for not just children, but the adults too. For example, a young factory worker, Giles Edmund Newsom, lost two fingers after a piece of machinery broke and fell onto his foot. This caused him to lose balance and fall onto the spinning machine, while his fingers went into unprotected gearing and ripped two of them off (Doc E). Another example of the dangers of the factories was that children up to thirteen years of age still have bones that are still developing, making them so soft that they will bend in any direction. As the workers in the mills worked nine hours a day, for six days a week, this long standing can result in what is called “knock knees”. Knock knees is a deformity in which the knees become so weak that they turn inwards (Doc F). A third example of the dangers in the factories was that children would constantly get beaten to stay awake during work

Not only were these workers left with physical, abiding injuries, they also gained trauma that would likely be with them forever. Another harm that greatly outweighed the benefits of the Industrial Revolution was that the workers did not receive an appropriate wage for the work they did. For example, the average wage for a 14-hour work day in the factories was thirty cents. With their weekly wage that was only one dollar and eighty cents, they also had to pay for their weekly room and board which was one dollar and twenty-five cents. So therefore at the end of the week, the workers were left with fifty-five cents to buy their everyday necessities (Doc I). Another example that highlights the low wage the workers received was that on March 1st, 1834, wages in some departments were reduced by fifteen percent. However, this new rule only applies to the women that worked in the factories. This event led to women holding several meetings, where the women at once decided to quit the mills (Doc