Changes in Working Life Vocabulary and Review

trade unions

groups that tried to improve pay and working conditions

What was life like for a mill girl?

hot stuffy rooms, dirty air caused health problems, loud machinery, dangerous conditions, long working hours 12-14 hrs

How did mill owners get workers to work for them?

Advertisements in newspapers, send recruiters to poor communities

How did the spread of factories in the 1800s impact craftspeople?

Factories could produce low-priced goods, whereas craftspeople created goods by hand taking longer amounts of time

What was different about the way workers worked in mills as opposed to craftspeople?

Mill workers didn't need specific skills to run machines in a mill, whereas craftspeople needed specific skills.

Francis Cabot Lowell

New England businessman whose ideas changed the textile industry in the northeast, hired young unmarried women to work his factories

How did the company store benefit the mill owner?

People paid for items over time in small payments which allowed the owner to reinvest his money in his business.

Why did mill owners hire entire families?

The children worked for lower pay than the adults resulting in cheap labor.

How did mill owners entice families to work for them?

They were offered housing, a company store, and credit to use at the store.

Samuel Slater

a skilled British mechanic who started the Pawtucket, RI textile mill which improved the way textiles were made in the US

Sarah G. Bagley

a strong voice in the union movement, a mill worker who founded the Lowell Female labor Reform Association

Why did skilled mill workers form labor unions?

low wages and fear of losing their jobs

concrete

specific, real

Rhode Island System

strategy of hiring families and dividing factory work into simple tasks, created by Samuel Slater

Lowell System

was based on water-powered textile mills that employed young, unmarried women from local farms; the system included a loom that could both spin thread and weave cloth in the same mill

strikes

workers who staged protests and refused to work until employers met their demands

apprentice

young men who worked for several years to learn a trade