Industrial Revolution Dbq Essay

The Industrial Revolution was a time when many different transitions in the world with the production of goods, and machines, and the rights of people were being created and challenged. During this time, many issues with the law and the safety of the people were rising and getting worse. The Industrial Revolution had taken many steps to address these issues through different testimonies, pointing out the negative aspects of the working class, and the Factory Act of 1833. During the Industrial Revolution, the owners of the factories cared about the means of production way more than the health and safety of the workers and children. In William Harter’s Testimony, he was asked what would happen if the hours were reduced for workers' health and

The working class had their lives consumed by their work, and they never had time for their family or other activities outside of work. Samuel Smiles states, “They work, eat, drink, and sleep: that constitutes their life. They think nothing of providing for tomorrow, or next week, or next year.” (Document 6) The working class was forced to work night and day, and their lives were taken away through their work experiences. They never had time to spend the nights with their families, have a nice dinner, or do activities for themselves. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engles, explain that the working class is always crowded together in a factory. They go on to explain that their living and working conditions, made them not only slaves to the bourgeois class but also to their work and the machines that they manage. (Document 7) These workers had been slaves to their job, where they hardly have any freedom or choice when it comes to their work or lives. They were unable to think about the future or what they needed, or wanted, because they knew that without their work, they would be unable to provide for themselves, and their

In the Factory Act, it states, “no person under eighteen years of age shall [work] between half-past eight in the evening and half-past five in the morning.” This law helped place restrictions on who could work during these night hours and the amount of work the children could achieve. The Factory Act also placed laws that made it illegal, except in mills for silk production, to employ children have not completed their ninth year in school. (Document 4) This is because, by the ninth year, children are already being trained to work in the factories and mills for when they need a job and are already trained. This helped put child labor laws into place and limit the age of working children. Through this, children were more protected from dangerous machinery and were able to have more time at home with their families. Though this Factory Act did not fix everything in the Industrial Revolution, it did help lead to solutions to some major issues during this