6.4 Social Effects of Industrialization

Proletariat

the industrial working class

Labor Unions

Organizations of workers who, together, put pressure on the employers in an industry to improve working conditions and wages.

Entrepreneur

A person who organizes, manages, and takes on the risks of a business.

class consciousness

A person's awareness of their place in the system of social classes, especially as it relates to class struggle.

Chartism

A program of political reforms sponsored by British workers in the late 1830s. Their demands included universal manhood suffrage, secret ballots, equal electoral districts, and salaries for members of the House of Commons.

Factory Act of 1833

An act that limited the factory workday for children between nine and thirteen years of age to eight hours. While this act decreased the number of children employed their places were taken by women, who came to dominate the labor forces of the early factories.

The People's Charter

Demands made by the Chartists in 1838, which called for universal adult male suffrage, secret ballots, abolition of property requirements for members of Parliament, salaries for Parliament members among with other political reforms.

Ten Hours Act of 1847

a law that reduced the workday of children between 13-18 to no more than 10 hours a day. Women were also included in this.

Bourgeois

a member of the middle class