America v.s. Britain: Which Had Worse Conditions in the Industrial Revolution?

Being beaten, facing near death experiences, and working twelve hours each day are just a few of the awful conditions that factory workers went through during the Industrial Revolution.  Factories were set up in Great Britain and the United States.  Despite the presence of awful conditions in both countries, it was Great Britain that really proved not to be so “great” when it came to the treatment of factory workers.

If someone looks at this building from the outside, they would not think anything horrible goes on in there.  It is a well-kept building with nearby neighborhood and some nice gardens.  People were probably happy to send their children there during the Industrial Revolution.  The truth is that what is inside is a shocking, chaotic, and dangerous setting with ear bursting machines, unsafe working area which have caused multiple violent accidents, and hardworking young girls who are being treated very poorly.  The girls had to wake up at 4:00 a.m.  Work at the mills did not end until seven that night, so if current day students think that waking up at 6:00 a.m. is a challenge, imagine how these children felt!  This is a fifteen hour day, and with harsher conditions, too!  This building is a mill from Waltham, Massachusetts, meaning that the mill inside was part of the Lowell experiment.  The goal of the Lowell experiment was to create mills that had better working conditions than Great Britain did, and many historians believe that this goal was achieved.  So if any of these conditions mentioned earlier seem terrible, imagine what the mills in Britain were like!

The workers in Great Britain had it much worse than the workers in America in terms of conditions.  While still waking up at four, hours in most of the British factories did not conclude until anywhere between nine and eleven at night, making the day even longer.  Also, workers in the Lowell experiment had opportunities to take a lunch and dinner breaks.  However, in Great Britain, there was only one lunch break.  All other meals were either eaten on workers’ ways to the mills or at their working stations.  The workers were not paid either, as most of them were orphans who were basically enslaved.  If caught trying to escape, workers faced awful punishments, from losing all their hair, to being locked up in “punishment rooms” for a week with nothing but a little food.  Both cruel overseers and unsafe machines allowed children to be beaten, scalped, and crushed.  Many lives were lost in these factories.  So while American factories had their problems, British factories had much, much worse ones and many lives were negatively affected by the poor conditions, treatment, and safety precautions. 

Becoming a Curator for the Industrial Revolution

A curator is a very important job in a museum.  Think about it, if there weren’t any curators, than all of the exhibits at museums people visited would lack descriptions and sources.  Organization would be off, and the entire set up would just mean nothing to the viewer.  Our group learned the importance of being a curator, as well as how to be one as we explored how the steam engine impacted the Industrial Revolution.  Our exhibit included a map of coal and metal production, which showed how resources varied due to geography, as well as a diagram showing the basic functions of a steam engine.  Also on our poster was a debate between William Wordsworth and Samuel Smiles regarding how they felt about the steam engine, and a writing by Robert Fulton who is discussing his first voyage on a steam boat.  We also included a photo of the cutting at Bilsworth, and a timeline of events in the Industrial Revolution.  We also added some other parts of the poster, including an interactive “QR Code” in which viewers could scan into and share how they felt about the debate portion.  Finally, we gave our exhibit a title.  Our group came up with “Hot Stuff: How the Steam Engine Fired up the Industrial Revolution” for our exhibit’s title.  We agreed that not only was it catchy and able to attract visitors, but it also made sense to the topic of the steam engine’s significance to the Industrial Revolution.  It seemed that our poster was complete, but the curating process still was not.

There is more to curating than just creating the exhibit, as reflecting, analyzing, and seeing the project from a viewer’s perspective are all important.  From our groups project, I hope that visitors learn just how important the Industrial Revolution was; specifically, the steam engine.  It really did lead up to everything we have today, and it was also important in its original time period.  Once the steam engine was invented, it was used for daily tasks, and it was also used to find other resources which could be used for daily tasks, and I hope the audience understands its significance.  It was a major contribution to the Industrial Revolution.  Finally, it is important for a curator to analyze and reflect on their final product.  This is important because it is a way to look back on the product, see what was done well, but also look for areas to improve on for future projects.  The curator also gets a chance to view it in many different perspectives, from their own perspective, to the perspective of a visitor.

Another good opportunity was that since our entire class made posters, and each were on different sections of the Industrial Revolution, it gave us more time to experience a viewer’s perspective and learn more about the revolution from other classmates’ projects.  For example, one group made a project called, “All Work, No Play” which was about child labor during the Industrial Revolution.  I learned a lot from it, from how awfully children were treated as they dragged heavy loads of coal through small spaces, to how eventually regulations came out limiting child labor, in ways such a limiting the hours they can work each day.  Other groups did projects having to do with the poor treatment of slaves during this time period, including a group which made a project called, “Cotton or Freedom? You Decide”.  This poster showed how slaves were a major contribution in cotton growth during the revolution.  However, even though slaves were also treated very poorly, cotton was a big deal during the revolution, because more slaves lead to more cotton, and more cotton eventually lead to a bigger income, making it an interesting exhibit to explore.  I also learned through another group’s exhibit that the living conditions for the majority of the population weren’t great either.  I learned from “The Dark Side of the Industrial Revolution”, that people barley made enough money to live and sustain themselves, and conditions grew bad in the cities as the water became polluted, murky, and “dark” due to the new machines.  Finally, the project “Spinning into the Future” taught me a lot, as well.  I learned that other new tools from the Industrial Revolution could be used in the house, such as hand looms.  Also, once cottager industry died out, the new factories provided job opportunities for people.  There is really a lot to learn about the Industrial Revolution, and many of it comes from differing perspectives from different people.  History is all about perspectives, and it is a curator’s job to capture both the facts and opinions in the past and present them in a brief, fashionable, and engaging way to the visitors each day.