Why The Need For Workers.
An Introduction to the History
In the early 1700’s the good quality cotton was in great demand. At this time weaving was done at home by families and was a very slow process. Sometimes, no profit was made on the cloth because it could not always be sold. Weaving was improved by the invention of the flying shuttle invented by John Kay. Although the ‘flying shuttle’ sped up the process of weaving, it wasn’t until 1765 when James Hargreaves invented ‘the spinning jenny’ that weaving was greatly improved. The spinning jenny could spin 16-18 threads instead of just one, like in previous years. After this, ‘spin off’ were made e.g. Arkwrights ‘waterframe’ or Edmund Cartwrights ‘powerloom’. These were all heavy and big machines that could not be used at home anymore. Knowing this, mill owners like Samuel Greg and Richard Arkwright invested in mills and machinery. They then employed people from local villages and towns. Sometimes children and orphans were employed to do jobs like cleaning under machines and carrying baskets. But how were the workers treated and what was the main aim of their work?
Mills in the 17-1800’s
With mills getting bigger and the rate of which colossal machinery was
progressing, lots of cheap workers were needed to operate these machines
for long hours. These people were the poor people of the cites. The underdogs
of the newly founded capitalist society that was sweeping the world,
separating once equal people into different social classes known from then
on as "rich" and "poor". This made it extremely hard for the undertrodden,
dismissed, ragged, poor people to make any kind of profit, let alone a
substantial one. So when the opportunity of working in a factory came about, these people came flooding in to the mills, not knowing what to expect. As most of them were illiterate, they just simply put the letter 'x' at the bottom of forms
without knowing that what they were sighing was a contract enabling the
factory owners to make the workers work how many hours THEY wanted them to
work for, for as much pay as THEY wanted to give them and to treat the
workers how the owners feel THEY want to treat them. This same thing happened
all over England; this is what the factory owners had been waiting for. The industrial revaluation was here, and the factory owners were in business. Most of the people that were inployed were children as young as 6 or seven whos job it was to go under machinery and tie loose threads
