Industrial Revolution DBQ

Document 1: 
The Englishman, in eleven years, gets three bushels more of wheat than the Frenchman. He gets three crops of barley, tares [vetches grown for fodder], or beans, which produce nearly twice as many bushels per acre, as what the three French crops of spring corn [grain] produce. And he farther gets, at the same time, three corps of turnips, and two of clover…But farther; the Englishman’s land, by means of the manure arising from the consumption of the turnips and clover is in a constant state of improvement, while the Frenchman’s farm is stationary.

Document 2: 
I have seen a small manufactory [factory] of this kind where ten men only were employed, and where some of them performed two or three distinct operations…They could…make among them…upwards of 48,000 pins in a day…But if they had all wrought [worked] separately and independently…they certainly could not each of them have made twenty…in a day.

*Assembly line: a series of workers and machines in a factory progressively assemble (each worker is responsible for one part) a succession (one right after the other) of identical items

Document 3: 

Sadler: What is the nature of your illness?

Hebergam: I have damaged lungs. My leg muscles do not function properly and will not support the weight of my bones.

Sadler: A doctor has told you that you will die within the year, is that correct?

5

Hebergam: I have been so told.

Sadler: Did he tell you the cause of your illness?

Hebergam: He told me that it was caused by the dust in the factories and from overwork and insufficient diet…

Sadler: To what was his (your brother’s) death attributed?

Hebergam: He was cut by a machine and he died of infection.

10

Sadler: Do you know of any other children who died at the R____________ Mill.

Hebergam: There were about a dozen died during the two year and a half that I was there. At the L_________ Mill where I worked last, a boy was caught in a machine and had both his thigh bones broke and from his knee to his hip the flesh was ripped up the same as it had been cut by a knife. His hand was bruised, his eyes were nearly torn out and his arms were broken. His sister, who ran to pull him off, had both her arms broke and her head bruised. The boy died. I do not know if the girl is dead, but she was not expected to live. 

Sadler: Did the accident occur because the shaft was not covered?

Hebergam: Yes. 

Document 4: 
…One day I walked with one of these middle-class gentlemen into Manchester. I spoke to him about the disgraceful unhealthy slums and drew his attention to the disgusting condition of that part of the town in which the factory workers lived. I declared that I had never seen so badly built a town in my life. He listened patiently and at the corner of the street at which we parted company he remarked: “And yet there is a great deal of money made here. Good morning, Sir.”…

Document 6: 
…no person under eighteen years of age shall [work] between half-past eight in the evening and half-past five in the morning, in any cotton, woolen, worsted, hemp, flax, tow, linen or silk mill…
…no person under the age of eighteen shall be employed in any such mill…more than twelve hours in…one day, nor more than sixty-nine hours in…one week…
There shall be allowed…not less than one and a half hours for meals.
It shall not be lawful for any person to employ…in any factory…as aforesaid for longer than forty-eight hours in one week, nor for longer than nine hours in one day, any child who shall not have completed his or her eleventh year…
It shall be lawful for His Majesty to appoint for Inspectors of factories where…children and young persons under eighteen years of age [are] employed, empowered to enter any…mill, and any school, belonging thereto, at all times…by day or by night, when such…factories are at work.
The Inspectors shall have power to make such rules as may be necessary for the execution of this act, binding on all persons subject to the provisions of this act; and are authorized to enforce the attendance at school of children employed in factories according to the provisions of this act.
Every child restricted to the performance of forty-eight hours of labour in any one week shall attend some school. 

Document 7: 
You are surrounded, as we have constantly shown you throughout this book, with an infinite number of comforts and conveniences which had no existence two or three centuries ago and those comforts are not used only by a few, but are within the reach of almost all men, Every day is adding something to your comforts. Your houses are better built, your clothes are cheaper, you have an infinite number of domestic utensils, you can travel cheaply from place to place, and not only travel at less expense, but travel ten times quicker than two hundred years ago.