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Three  Views  of  the  Factories     Robert  Owen  was  factory  owner,  but  also  a  critic  of  the  factory  system.     Excerpt  from  Observations  on  the  Effect  of  the  Manufacturing  System  (1815)        .  .  .The  governing  principle  for  trade,  manufactures  and  commerce  is   immediate  pecuniary  gain,  to  which  on  the  great  scale  every  other  is  made  to  give   way.  All  are  sedulously  trained  to  buy  cheap  and  to  sell  dear;  and  to  succeed  in  this   art,  the  parties  must  be  taught  to  acquire  strong  powers  of  deception;  and  thus  a   spirit  is  generated  through  every  class  of  traders,  destructive  of  that  open,  honest   sincerity,  without  which  man  cannot  make  others  happy,  nor  enjoy  happiness   himself.       But  the  effects  of  this  principle  of  gain,  unrestrained,  are  still  more   lamentable  on  the  working  classes,  those  who  are  employed  in  the  operative  parts   of  the  manufactures;  for  most  of  these  branches  are  more  or  less  unfavorable  to  the   health  and  morals  of  adults.  Yet  parents  do  not  hesitate  to  sacrifice  the  well-­‐being  of   their  children  by  putting  them  to  occupations  by  which  the  constitution  of  their   minds  and  bodies  is  rendered  greatly  inferior  to  what  it  might  and  ought  to  be  under   a  system  of  common  foresight  and  humanity  .  .  .     In  the  manufacturing  districts  it  is  common  for  parents  to  send  their  children   of  both  sexes  at  seven  or  eight  years  of  age,  in  winter  as  well  as  summer,  at  six   o'clock  in  the  morning,  sometimes  of  course  in  the  dark,  and  occasionally  amidst   frost  and  snow,  to  enter  manufactories,  which  are  often  heated  to  a  high   temperature,  and  contain  an  atmosphere  far  from  being  the  most  favorable  to   human  life,  and  in  which  all  those  employed  in  them  very  frequently  continue  until   twelve  o'clock  at  noon,  when  an  hour  is  allowed  for  dinner,  after  which  they  return   to  remain,  in  a  majority  of  cases,  till  eight  o'clock  at  night.       The  children  now  find  they  must  labor  incessantly  for  their  bare  subsistence:   they  have  not  been  used  to  innocent,  healthy,  and  rational  amusements;  they  are  not   permitted  the  requisite  time,  if  they  had  been  previously  accustomed  to  enjoy  them.   They  know  not  what  relaxation  means,  except  by  the  actual  cessation  from  labor.   They  are  surrounded  by  others  similarly  circumstanced  with  themselves,  and  thus   passing  on  from  childhood  to  youth,  they  become  gradually  initiated,  the  young  men   in  particular,  but  often  the  young  females  also,  in  the  seductive  pleasures  of  the  pot-­‐ house  and  inebriation:  for  which  their  daily  hard  labor,  want  of  better  habits,  and   the  general  vacuity  of  their  minds,  tend  to  prepare  them.  .  .     ____________________________________________________________________________________________   James  Kay  was  a  medical  doctor  and  writer  on  social  conditions  in  Manchester,   England.  He  was  later  made  the  administrator  in  charge  of  public  grants  to  support   schools.       Excerpt  from  Moral  and  Physical  Condition  of  the  Working  Classes  [1832]    

The  artisan  has  neither  moral  dignity  nor  intellectual  nor  organic  strength  to  resist   the  seductions  of  appetite.  His  wife  and  children,  too  frequently  subjected  to  the   same  process,  are  unable  to  cheer  his  remaining  moments  of  leisure.  Domestic   economy  [maintaining  a  home]  is  neglected,  domestic  comforts  are  unknown.  A   meal  of  the  coarsest  food  is  prepared  with  heedless  haste,  and  devoured  with  equal   precipitation.  Home  has  no  other  relation  to  him  than  that  of  shelter-­‐-­‐few  pleasures   are  there-­‐-­‐it  chiefly  presents  to  him  a  scene  of  physical  exhaustion,  from  which  he  is   glad  to  escape.  Himself  impotent  to  all  the  distinguishing  aims  of  his  species,  he   sinks  into  sensual  sloth,  or  revels  in  more  degrading  licentiousness.  His  house  is  ill-­‐ furnished,  uncleanly,  often  ill  ventilated,  perhaps  damp;  his  food,  through  want  of   forethought  and  domestic  economy,  is  meagre  and  innutritious;  he  is  debilitated  and   hypochondriacal,  and  falls  the  victim  of  dissipation  .  .  .     The  wages  obtained  by  operatives  in  the  various  branches  of  the  cotton   manufacture  are,  in  general,  such,  as  with  the  exercise  of  that  economy  without   which  wealth  itself  is  wasted,  would  be  sufficient  to  provide  them  with  all  the  decent   comforts  of  life-­‐-­‐the  average  wage  of  all  persons  employed  (young  and  old)  being   from  nine  to  twelve  shillings  per  week.  Their  means  are  consumed  by  vice  and   improvidence.  But  the  wages  of  certain  classes  are  exceedingly  meagre.  The   introduction  of  the  power-­‐loom,  though  ultimately  destined  to  be  productive  of  the   greatest  general  benefits,  has,  in  the  present  restricted  state  of  commerce,   occasioned  some  temporary  embarrassment,  by  diminishing  the  demands  for   certain  kinds  of  labor,  and,  consequently,  their  price.  The  hand-­‐loom  weavers,   existing  in  the  state  of  transition,  still  constitute  a  very  extensive  class,  and  though   they  labor  fourteen  hours  and  upwards  daily,  earn  only  from  five  to  seven  shillings   per  week.  .  .     With  unfeigned  regret,  we  are  constrained  to  add,  that  the  standard  of   morality  is  exceedingly  debased,  and  that  religious  observances  are  neglected   amongst  the  operative  population  of  Manchester  .  .  .     The  children  are  often  neglected  by  their  parents.  The  early  age  at  which  girls   are  admitted  into  the  factories,  prevents  their  acquiring  much  knowledge  of   domestic  economy;  and  even  supposing  them  to  have  had  accidental  opportunities   of  making  this  acquisition,  the  extent  to  which  women  are  employed  in  the  mills   does  not,  even  after  marriage,  permit  the  general  application  of  its  principles.  The   infant  is  the  victim  of  the  system;  it  has  not  lived  long,  ere  it  is  abandoned  to  the  care   of  a  hireling  or  neighbor,  whilst  its  mother  pursues  her  accustomed  toil.  Sometimes   a  little  girl  has  care  of  the  child,  or  even  of  two  or  three  collected  from  neighboring   houses.  Thus  abandoned  to  one  whose  sympathies  are  not  interested  in  its  welfare,   or  whose  time  is  too  often  also  occupied  in  household  drudgery,  the  child  is  ill-­‐fed,   dirty,  ill-­‐clothed,  exposed  to  cold  and  neglect,  and,  in  consequence,  more  than  one-­‐ half  of  the  offspring  of  the  poor  (as  may  be  proved  by  the  bills  of  mortality  of  the   town)  die  before  they  have  completed  their  fifth  year  .  .  .   _______________________________________________________________________________________________     Andrew  Ure  was  a  Scottish  doctor  and  scientist.    He  toured  factory  towns  and   wrote  a  positive  book  about  industry  and  industrial  life.    

Excerpt  from  Philosophy  of  Manufactures  [1835]     No  master  would  wish  to  have  any  wayward  children  to  work  within  the  walls  of  his   factory,  who  do  not  mind  their  business  without  beating,  and  he  therefore  usually   fines  and  turns  away  any  spinners  who  are  known  to  maltreat  their  assistants.   Hence,  ill-­‐usage  of  any  kind  is  a  very  rare  occurrence.  I  have  visited  many  factories,   both  in  Manchester  and  in  the  surrounding  districts,  during  a  period  of  several   months,  entering  the  spinning  rooms,  unexpectedly,  and  often  alone,  at  different   times  of  day,  and  I  never  saw  a  single  instance  of  corporal  chastisement  inflicted  on   a  child,  nor  indeed  did  I  ever  see  children  in  ill-­‐humor.  They  seemed  to  be  always   cheerful  and  alert,  taking  pleasure  in  the  light  play  of  their  muscles-­‐-­‐enjoying  the   mobility  natural  to  their  age.  The  scene  of  industry,  far  from  exciting  sad  emotions   in  my  mind,  was  always  exhilarating.  it  was  delightful  to  observe  the  nimbleness   with  which  they  pieced  the  broken  ends,  as  the  mule  carriage  began  to  recede  from   the  fixed  roller-­‐beam,  and  to  see  them  at  leisure,  after  a  few  seconds'  exercise  of   their  tiny  fingers,  to  amuse  themselves  in  any  attitude  they  chose,  till  the  stretch  and   winding-­‐on  were  once  more  completed.  The  work  of  these  lively  elves  seems  to   resemble  a  sport,  in  which  habit  gave  them  a  pleasing  dexterity.  Conscious  of  their   skill,  the  were  delighted  to  show  it  off  to  any  stranger.  As  to  exhaustion  by  the  day's   work,  they  evinced  no  trace  of  it  on  emerging  from  the  mill  in  the  evening;  for  they   immediately  began  to  skip  about  any  neighboring  playground,  and  to  commence   their  little  amusements  with  the  same  alacrity  as  boys  issuing  from  a  school.  It  is   moreover  my  firm  conviction,  that  if  children  are  not  ill-­‐used  by  bad  parents  or   guardians,  but  receive  in  food  and  raiment  the  full  benefit  of  what  they  earn,  they   would  thrive  better  in  our  modern  factories  than  if  left  alone  in  apartments  too   often  ill-­‐aired,  damp  and  cold  .  .  .       Occupations  which  are  assisted  by  steam  engines  require  for  the  most  part  a   higher,  or  at  least  a  steadier,  species  of  labor  than  those  which  are  not;  the  exercise   of  the  mind  being  then  partially  substituted  for  that  of  the  muscles,  constituting   skilled  labor,  which  is  always  paid  more  highly  than  unskilled.  On  this  principle  we   can  readily  account  for  the  comparatively  high  wages  which  the  inmates  of  a  cotton   factory,  whether  children  or  adults,  obtain.