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


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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

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