Three Views of the Factories

Robert Owen was factory owner, but also a critic of the factory system.

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. . .

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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.

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 . . .

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Andrew Ure was a Scottish doctor and scientist. He toured factory towns and wrote a positive book about industry and industrial life.

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.