Thursday, April 23, 2009

England during the Industrial Revolution

In this revolution England had several key aspects:

  • What kind of houses did people have at the time?: There were tow types of houses, home of wealthy, which were like castles for rich people, just in the center of a giant garden; or the homes of the poor people, they shared toilets, they were small.
  • What kind of meals did factory workers eat?: Factory owners were responsible for providing their pauper apprentices with food. Children constantly complained about the quality of the food. In most textile mills the children had to eat their meals while still working. This meant that the food tended to get covered with the dust from the cloth.It was very hard to get food in the industrial revolution due to little pay and poor wages.
  • How much money did factory workers make?: They were payed about 1 shilling (a type of currency in that time), or about 5 pence these days. They were payed about 1 shilling, or about five pence in today money, but with inflation, it could be about six or seven pence.
  • What were the working conditions?: Workers had to labor for many hours, often more than 12 hours a day, sometimes more than 14, and people worked six days a week. One of the main concerns about the number of textile workers was the safety of the factories. Unguarded machinery was a major problem for children working in factories. There were reports that every year there are nearly a thousand people treated for wounds and mutilations caused by machines in factories. Many of the workers were often abandoned from a moment that is when accident occurs. Their salary is stopped, no medical attendance is provided and no compensation is given.

As you can see, only life was good for wealthy or rich people, but for the less fortunate, they had to work under terrible conditions, only at the end to be surrounded around their master's plan to gain more money. However, most of these conditions are already solved.

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