Topics Two and Three are combined on this page of the History 10 web site. Both topics bring us into the history of industrializing economies and societies of the nineteenth century. Assigned readings, in both The Modern World and Documenting the Modern World, are divided into two parts. This web page is similarly organized: 
 
 

The sources linked to this page will allow us to explore the early history of industrial society from two different directions. The accounts of Harriet Robinson (Document 2-6) and James O'Donnell (Document 2-7) allow us into the everyday world of the nineteenth-century industrial worker. Readings like Friedrich Engels's  Condition of the Working Class in England (Document 2-2) and the "Anti-Ten Hour Pamphlet" (Document 2-4) present us with contrasting ideologies, attempts to explain, criticize, or justify the conditions of an industrializing society. The two principal and conflicting nineteenth-century ideologies were liberalism (see Adam Smith on The Wealth of Nations) and socialism (see Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto). Smith outlined the fundamental principles of capitalist economies, while Marx, who believed capitalism was fundamentally evil and inevitably bound to destroy itself, criticized the role of the bourgeoisie in capitalist society. Engels was Marx's friend, patron, and collaborator. Compare their ideas to the descriptions of industrial society found in the sources linked to this page. 

Modern factory industry first appeared in late eighteenth-century England. Between 1780 and 1850 Britain became the world's first urban industrial society. Inventions like James Hargreaves's Spinning Jenny of 1764 (Document 2-1) and James Watt's Rotary Steam Engine (Document 2-2) permitted the mechanization of textile production. Britain had by then become a society in which the social structure, political structure, and legal system welcomed the capitalist entrepreneurs who developed an industrial economy of mines, mills, railroads, and canals. Large cities like Manchester, capital of the cotton trade, became marvels of the age, both for their astounding industrial productivity and for the appalling conditions of their working-class districts. 

The New Industrial City

Friedrich Engels, a German-born manufacturer who worked in Manchester, became the friend and supporter of Karl Marx and co-authored The Communist Manifesto with Marx in 1848. In 1844 Engels published The Condition of the Working Class in England (Document 2-3), in which he vividly described the miserable conditions of Manchester's workers. Many other commentators also passed through Manchester and recorded their impressions. Read the short history and selection of first-hand accounts collected in these "Descriptions of Manchester" (Document 2-4). What overall impression do they give of the new industrial society? What is the range of responses to this new industrial world? Do they help you to understand contemporary reactions to industrialization? Engels was of course a vigorous critic of the capitalist system. Like Marx, he believed revolution was the only answer to capitalism's inequalities and human misery. Defenders of the system, meanwhile, fought any kind of reform. When Parliament considered a bill to restrict working hours in 1840, this Anti-Ten Hour Pamphlet (Document 2-5) argued strongly for a purely laissez-faire position, insisting that the marketplace should be allowed to operate with complete freedom. Among the accusations leveled against reformers here is that Michael Sadler, whose Parliamentary inquiry into child labor is part of your reading assignment for this topic, was guilty of falsifying the evidence. A lot was at stake in the battles over the new industrial order.

Celebrating Industrial Society--The Crystal Palace and "Great Exhibition"

In 1851, the first great celebration of industrial civilization was mounted in London. The Crystal Palace was an enormous glass and iron structure designed to house a "Great Exhibition" of modern industry. The Exhibition was a great success; thousands of people crowded the great hall to see products from all over the world--but mostly from Britain and its modern industries. In the mid nineteenth century, before the spread of industrialism to other societies and after nearly a century of unrivaled industrial development, this great structure and the exhibition it housed symbolized and trumpeted Britain's industrial supremacy and the marvels of nineteenth-century technologies. Examine this web site on the Crystal Palace (Document 2-6). What would a similar kind of building--using the latest technology and designed to celebrate the most up-to-date technological achievement--look like today? Where would such a building be found today? What would be in it?

 Memories of a "Lowell Girl"

Industrialization came to the United States in the 1820s and 1830s. The first center of American textile manufacturing was in Lowell, Massachusetts. Unlike Manchester, Lowell was a planned industrial community. The Boston entrepreneurs who financed and built Lowell wanted to avoid the conditions and abuses that afflicted British industrial towns. Initially, the Lowell factories employed native-born white women, many of them from New England farm families, and closely supervised their work and their lives. See the description of the Lowell Girls on p. 73 of The Modern World. Many years later, in 1883, a former Lowell girl named Harriet Robinson (Document 2-7) recalled her years working in Lowell in the 1830s and 1840s. Judging from Robinson's recollections, how did conditions in Lowell differ from conditions in Manchester, England? What do Robinson's memories tell you about the way young women experienced and thought about their work in the early factories? 

 The Life of a Worker in Industrial America

By the  late nineteenth century, when Robinson recalled her life in Lowell, the pace of technological and economic change had greatly accelerated.  New industries, new sources of energy, and new forms of business organization characterized this Second Industrial Revolution in the United States. Testifying to a Congressional committee in 1883, a textile worker named Thomas O'Donnell (Document 2-8) described how changes in technology and business could affect a worker's life in this period. Compare O'Donnell's description of his working life with the account of industrial work contained in Michael Sadler's Parliamentary report. What has changed in the life of a worker between England in 1832 and the United States in 1883? 

The Capitalist and the Anarchist