Societal Effects Of The Americ Essay Research

Paper The American Industrial Revolution had many profound and indelible effects on American society. The enormous expansion of American business and industry promoted a drastic change in the basic division of labor. The basic need of industry is labor, so a great demand for a workforce was created. Growing industrialization caused a huge influx of laborers into cities. As more factories sprang up, labor was expanded to utilize women and children. With expanding business and more workers, workers began to adamantly demand higher wages or more favorable hours; unionization came into full force. The American Industrial Revolution caused major growth of urban populations, precipitated a change the division of labor, and began movements for workers rights that led to unionization. The migration of laborers from rural farm life to urban factory life was a major result of America s industrialization. A fact of economic life is that workers in an industrial setting are able to command higher wages than farm workers. Labor in an industrial setting is simply more efficient than the productivity of farm workers. Because economic systems compensate laborers in accordance with their output rather than how hard or how long they work, industrial labor becomes the obvious choice for a worker. As Chamberlain states in The Enterprising Americans, The productivity for a worker in a factory could be as much as ten times that of their farming counterparts (97). Simply stated, the simple gain in productivity meant a wage increase ten times that of farm work, only by switching to industrial labor. For the great majority of workers, this was too much to resist, causing an exodus of laborers from rural to urban areas and skyrocketing the urban population. As factories spread, there was a high demand for workers. However, during the early stages of industrialization, labor was difficult to obtain. In urban areas, most suitable laborers were skilled artisans that were unlikely to switch over to the unskilled work of a factory laborer. The answer came with the influx of rural unskilled workers to the cities. In addition to the economic benefits, rural families were flocking to the cities because new farming technology was lessening the amount of labor necessary to produce the crops. The factories had a huge new segment of the population from which to draw unskilled workers. In many cases, especially in those of textile mills, all sources of labor were tapped. Many factories recruited entire families to work, while some mills utilized female labor almost exclusively. This Lowell system relied on women laborers as a workforce. The practice of using women labor was so profitable because it was acceptable to pay women much less than male laborers. To further lower the costs of labor, industry often used child labor. Children worked for even less than women, and therefore, were widely used. Some states discouraged the practice, but the laws were not strictly enforced, plus there were they were easily sidestepped. New Hampshire passed a law stating that no minor under fifteen years of age shall work for more than ten hours per day without the consent of a parent or guardian. The clause providing parental consent was a simple loophole, since the families of many children laborers were working in the same factory themselves. Horace Greeley stated his disapproval of the New Hampshire legislature when he asked, Will any one pretend that ten hours per day, especially at confining and monotonous avocations which tax at once the brain and the sinews are not quite enough for any child to labor statedly and steadily? He believed that the States must avert the trend of parents giving consent for child labor by specifically limiting and enforcing the hours of child labor (Orth 53). Child labor laws became a major issue for the workforce and many politicians alike. Industrialization created a new division of labor that utilized women and children at very low wages. There were many factors that contributed to discontent among the workforce of the American Industrial Revolution. Multitudes of primarily rural workers had to come to grips with the fact that their new, urban lifestyle was totally different than their old, rural one. With the speedy growth of the urban population, typical urban problems arose. Families were clustered tightly together, and with the soaring population density came increases in crime, increases in disease, and high levels of stress on the family. Workers wanted to improve their situation, and naturally they sought help from their employers. Most frequently, laborers demanded a work day with fewer hours. In 1833, in the first successful strike in American history, the Trades Union of the City and County of Philadelphia successfully demanded a ten hour day. Politicians jumped at the chance to garner support from the working class, and in 1847, New Hampshire passed the first law mandating the ten hour work day; Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, and Rhode Island soon adopted the same ten-hour system (Orth 54). Women also played key roles in union actions. In 1836, the women workers of the Lowell factories struck for higher wages. The Lowell women persisted in their crusades, and eventually the Lowell Female Industrial Reform and Mutual Aid Society formulated. They were influential on a wide scale, and they played the key role in convincing Massachusetts to favorably adapt their labor laws. The trend toward a shorter work day continued with demands for an eight hour day. Ira Steward developed a pamphlet called A Reduction of Hours and Increase of Wages that influenced many states to implement an eight hour day. Various labor societies formed during the period following the Civil War, but the major step was taken when the National Labor Union was formed in 1866. A major step at a fully national union, the NLA had a membership of nearly 700,000 at its peak (Orth 230). The National Labor Union lasted only a short while, but it did much to promote the eight hour work day, and it instituted labor bureaus to monitor trends in labor. The American Industrial Revolution greatly affected patterns of society. It caused a massive migration of workers from the countryside to the city. In an effort to gain unskilled labor, factories created a new division of labor by implementing the practice of using woman and child workers. New social institutions arose as the result of the industrialization process and its chaotic urban lifestyle. Unions came to be so that workers could fight for their rights and achieve their demands for higher wages and a shorter work day. Overall, the American Industrial Revolution was the causing factor of many social changes, many of which have survived to the present.