Student Paper F992-01
Fall 1999, Section I
Reviewer Comments

The Industrial Awakening

The factories built during the industrial revolution which were meant to produce consumer goods, actually produced conflict. In fact, Europe was so conflict-ridden that revolution became the order of the day. Europe was faced with all kinds of conflict including military and political. There are many reasons as to why European society ran against the tide, but what started it all? The prime justification for the arise in social and gender conflict in nineteenth century European society is the industrial revolution.

The mechanization of existing machines made it possible for factory owners to produce the same goods which artisans crafted, but at a higher rate and cheaper cost. The lower priced goods which factory owners could easily afford caused artisans to lose their businesses and be forced to work in a factory for a low wage. Adam Smith explains in The Wealth of Nations that "the trade of the pin-maker; a workman not educated to this business, nor acquainted with the use of the machinery employed in it, could scarce, perhaps, with his utmost industry, make one pin in a day, and certainly could not make twenty."¹ He goes on to say that he has seen a factory of this type where only ten men were employed for the same job. "But though they were very poor, and therefore but indifferently accommodated with the necessary machinery, they could, when they exerted themselves, make among them about twelve pounds of pins in a day."

Adam Smith proves to me in this passage that the industrial revolution caused social conflict. if the workers produced twelve pounds of pens in one day, then why are they (according to him) "very poor"? I believe it is because the factory owner decided to keep as much of the profit for himself, meanwhile, paying the workers just enough to get by. So the difference in pay between the workers and the owners of factories would be enough to cause a class separation in which the lower class suffered for the benefit of the middle class. Therefore, the suffering experienced by the working class provided ever increasing social conflict between them and the middle class.

In other words, as businesses grew larger and controlled more capital, competition between the ever enlarging firms led to an increase of the suffering of the working class. The industrial revolution allowed the smaller middle class the means in which they needed to control and exploit the larger lower class. Unfortunately, this was not the first time social conflict had occurred between social classes.

The social classes which were formed by the industrial revolution provided much conflict between the genders. Emmeline Pankhurst points out in My Road to Social Democracy, that the goals of the women's movement "were to raise women of all classes out of oppression and legal discrimination."³ I believe that women were oppressed by the industrial revolution because wages were unequal between the sexes. A women who worked the same job as a man was paid less because it was the popular belief that her wages were supplementary to her husband's. This was the ease for all women in all social classes. Therefore, if a women's husband died she would have to get a job in order to support her self, but she would have a hard time doing that if she was paid less than a man would be paid for the same job. The lower wage rate would only naturally cause discontent in women trying to make a living, and so arose conflict between the genders.

Because factories of the industrial revolution did not require skilled labor, women could get a job in them and make a small living. Unfortunately, women were apparently treated much differently than men. Emmeline Pankhurst wrote that "the misery and inhuman exploitation of so many women workers from all branches of industry disturbed me terribly." Apparently, women were treated in this manner because they had little to no political rights. During this time period, everything a women owned before marriage became her husband's after marriage, and she had no political rights. Because most women who worked in the factories were almost always single, I believe that the factory owners thought nothing could be done to them if they treated these women harshly. Chances were that she had no husband to do anything about the fact that she was being treated in a inhuman manner, so they had nothing to worry about. Gender conflict would obviously arise in a situation like this, and it did.

The industrial revolution of nineteenth century European society was the major factor which brought about social and gender conflict. It changed European society so quickly and dramatically that all hell broke lose. For the first time, people took a step back and looked at the world around them and realized that it was time for change. I truly believe that if the industrial revolution had never of taken place, European society would be the same today as it was in the seventeenth century.

²Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels, "Manifesto of the Communist Party," <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/ 1840/com-man/ch02.htm>, 1867. 

³Emmeline Pankhurst, "My Road to Social Democracy," <http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1914Pankhurst.html>, 1914.

Bibliography

Chadwick, Edwin. "Report on Sanitary Conditions." <http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/history/chadwick2.html>. 1842.

National Assembly of France. "Declaration of the Rights of Man." <http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/rightsof.htm>. 1789.

Pankhurst, Emmeline. "My Road to Social Democracy." <http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1914Pankhurst.html>. 1914.

Parliamentary Papers, Vol XVI, pp.24, 196. "Women Miners in the English Coal Pits." <http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/ 1 842womenminers.html>. 1842.

Smith, Adam. "The Wealth of Nations." <http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/adamsmith-summary.html>. 1776.