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Working in new industrial cities had an effect on people’s lives outside of the factories as well. As workers migrated from the country to the city, their lives and the lives of their families were utterly and permanently transformed.
For many skilled workers, the quality of life decreased a great deal in the first 60 years of the Industrial Revolution. Skilled weavers, for example, lived well in pre-industrial society as a kind of middle class. They tended their own gardens, worked on textiles in their homes or small shops, and raised farm animals. They were their own bosses. One contemporary observer noted, “their dwelling and small gardens clean and neat, —all the family well clad, —the men with each a watch in their pocket, and the women dressed in their own fancy, —the Church crowded to excess every Sunday, —every house well furnished with a clock in elegant mahogany or fancy case. . . . Their little cottages seemed happy and contented. . . . it was seldom that a weaver appealed to the parish for a relief. . . . peace and content sat upon the weaver’s brow” (Thompson 269). But, after the Industrial Revolution, the living conditions for skilled weavers significantly deteriorated. They could no longer live at their own pace or supplement their income with gardening, spinning, or communal harvesting. For skilled workers, quality of life took a sharp downturn: “A quarter [neighborhood] once remarkable for its neatness and order; I remembered their whitewashed houses, and their little flower gardens, and the decent appearance they made with their families at markets, or at public worship. These houses were now a mass of filth and misery“ (269).
In the first sixty years or so of the Industrial Revolution, working-class people had little time or opportunity for recreation. Workers spent all the light of day at work and came home with little energy, space, or light to play sports or games. The new industrial pace and factory system were at odds with the old traditional festivals which dotted the village holiday calendar. Plus, local governments actively sought to ban traditional festivals in the cities. In the new working-class neighborhoods, people did not share the same traditional sense of a village community. Owners fined workers who left their jobs to return to their villages for festivals because they interrupted the efficient flow of work at the factories (Stearns 73-74). After the 1850s, however, recreation improved along with the rise of an emerging the middle class. Music halls sprouted up in big cities. Sports such as rugby and cricket became popular. Football became a professional sport in 1885. By the end of the 19th century, cities had become the places with opportunities for sport and entertainment that they are today (Hobsbawm, Industry and Empire 164).
During the first 60 years of the Industrial Revoltuion, living conditions were, by far, worst for the poorest of the poor. In desperation, many turned to the “poorhouses” set up by the government. The Poor Law of 1834 created workhouses for the destitute. Poorhouses were designed to be deliberately harsh places to discourage people from staying on “relief” (government food aid). Families, including husbands and wives, were separated upon entering the grounds. They were confined each day as inmates in a prison and worked every day. One assistant commissioner of the workhouses commented, “Our intention is to make the workhouses as much like prisons as possible.” Another said, “Our object is to establish a discipline so severe and repulsive as to make them a terror to the poor and prevent them from entering” (Thompson 267). Yet, despite these very harsh conditions, workhouse inmates increased from 78,536 in 1838 to 197,179 in 1843 (268). This increase can only be viewed as a sign of desperation amongst the poorest of the poor.
originally posted by: toysforadults
The industrial age enslaved all of us to insane system where we all work ourselves to death so a handful of people can live in opulence.
prior to the industrial age people worked far less hours at their own leisure
our lives today are a joke, we spend our entire lives working for others to prosper and we're told we should be sooo happy about it, how great it is and this and that, such bs
originally posted by: toysforadults
The industrial age enslaved all of us to insane system where we all work ourselves to death so a handful of people can live in opulence.
prior to the industrial age people worked far less hours at their own leisure
our lives today are a joke, we spend our entire lives working for others to prosper and we're told we should be sooo happy about it, how great it is and this and that, such bs
One of capitalism's most durable myths is that it has reduced human toil. This myth is typically defended by a comparison of the modern forty-hour week with its seventy- or eighty-hour counterpart in the nineteenth century. The implicit -- but rarely articulated -- assumption is that the eighty-hour standard has prevailed for centuries. The comparison conjures up the dreary life of medieval peasants, toiling steadily from dawn to dusk.
Before capitalism, most people did not work very long hours at all. The tempo of life was slow, even leisurely; the pace of work relaxed.
When capitalism raised their incomes, it also took away their time.
It stretched from dawn to dusk (sixteen hours in summer and eight in winter), but, as the Bishop Pilkington has noted, work was intermittent - called to a halt for breakfast, lunch, the customary afternoon nap, and dinner. Depending on time and place, there were also midmorning and midafternoon refreshment breaks.
These rest periods were the traditional rights of laborers, which they enjoyed even during peak harvest times. During slack periods, which accounted for a large part of the year, adherence to regular working hours was not usual.
An important piece of evidence on the working day is that it was very unusual for servile laborers to be required to work a whole day for a lord. One day's work was considered half a day, and if a serf worked an entire day, this was counted as two "days-works."
The contrast between capitalist and precapitalist work patterns is most striking in respect to the working year. The medieval calendar was filled with holidays. Official -- that is, church -- holidays included not only long "vacations" at Christmas, Easter, and midsummer but also numerous saints' andrest days. These were spent both in sober churchgoing and in feasting, drinking and merrymaking. In addition to official celebrations, there were often weeks' worth of ales -- to mark important life events (bride ales or wake ales) as well as less momentous occasions (scot ale, lamb ale, and hock ale). All told, holiday leisure time in medieval England took up probably about one-third of the year.
originally posted by: toysforadults
a reply to: Lumenari
have a source for that?
also, I would like to point out that people of lesser intelligence tend to boil everything down to personal experience and their views of the individual rather than their view on the topic
originally posted by: dfnj2015
a reply to: toysforadults
Marx agrees with you:
The proponents of laissez-faire capitalism have absolute zero compassion for their fellow man. Let's pretend their's virtue is selfishness.
The source is history? You have a brain and an internet connection... care to use it to look up fun facts like the life expectancy of people pre-industrial, read up on what it took to survive in 1760?
I would like to point out that people of lesser intelligence generally have crappy jobs and bitch about it all day long because it is always everyone else's fault.
originally posted by: Lumenari
a reply to: toysforadults
Turn off your lights, turn off your water, turn off your phone.
Come back in three months and tell me how wonderful it was to be self-sufficient while working at your leisure.
Until then you are just spouting off socialist crap.
originally posted by: dfnj2015
a reply to: toysforadults
It's doesn't matter how long you work. It doesn't matter how much you get paid. It doesn't matter how much you pay in taxes. WHAT DOES MATTER is the purchasing power of your take home pay. And if you go by the Federal Reserve's own data the American people are getting screwed up the butt REAL hard:
www.quandl.com...
originally posted by: Lumenari
prior to the industrial age people worked far less hours at their own leisure.
I had forgotten about you and basic economics.
originally posted by: toysforadults
oh look, nothing to do with the topic, gosh you guys are good at that