The British Slums

The working conditions in both Britain and American factories were horrible compared to our daily life in the 21st century. These conditions were only partially the owners of the factories fault due to the many people wanting more and the fast paced machines that were newly invented.

Both factories had their reasons that led to these horrible conditions but some were more agreeable than others. Britain for one had many orphaned children that volunteered for the factory jobs in hope for some money. They were both in need to produce more goods at a aster pace and the demand was getting higher everyday with these new machines. The majority of the child labor was because the children were needed by their families to help out with money and food.

The two of the countries had very long, hard working days with minimum to no breaks each day. These mills were filled with the majority of children that were treated very poorly and needed at that time. There were many reported accidents involving the children workers and machines; some ended as badly as death.

The common day for a child worker in the American factories was a huge difference from a child worker's day in the Britain factories. The American factory workers had many more breaks and these breaks were longer than the few Britain factories had. Their working days were much shorter and stress less than the Britain factory days. In the DBQ packet, it states how the Lowell, MA mill workers had free time from around 8:00pm until 10:00pm "free time (attend a lecture, read, sew, peddlers sell wares, ect.)" and then the workers were told to go to bed at around 10:00pm.



I believe that the Britain factories were much more harsh that the American factories because of the evidence given from the DBQ packet and other worksheets on the mills around this time. According to the DBQ packet the common child worker only had one 40 minute break for lunch the whole day in Britain. These children had to eat their breakfast before work and their dinner while still working at the machines. But the American factory workers each got about an hour break for each. Because of the horrible working hours, many children got tired and dosed off towards the end of the day while still working. As said in the DBQ packet, "if so, the overseers beat them to keep them awake."

These conditions are very different from each other, Britain having the worst of them both. Both are horrible compared to the much better working conditions our country has nowadays.