Factory Life and the Growth of Cities

EQ: How did urbanization, technology,and social change affect the North?

Industries powered by steam now used mass production

Mass Production-The rapid manufacture of large numbers of identical objects

Factories used a system of interchangeable partsEach piece of the product was identical and could

be assembled quickly by unskilled workersEli Whitney devised this system

Using mass production and interchangeable parts, manufacturing became more efficient

The Factory Life

Eli Whitney’s Gun FactoryEli Whitney’s Gun Factory

Interchangeable Parts Rifle

The Lowell/Waltham System:

First Dual-Purpose Textile Plant

The Lowell/Waltham System:

First Dual-Purpose Textile Plant

Francis Cabot Lowell’s town - 1814

Lowell MillLowell Mill

Lowell GirlsLowell Girls

What was their typical “profile?”

Lowell Boarding HousesLowell Boarding Houses

What was boardinghouse life like?

1. What kind of women usually worked in Lowell?

2. What time do they go to work at Lowell and what time do they finish work? How many hours of work per day is this?

3. What were the conditions like in the Lowell Factory?

4. What were the conditions like in the women’s boarding houses?

Read About Life at Lowell

Dangerous MachinesWorkers who were

injured on the job received no compensation

Not uncommon for a worker to lose a hand or a foot

Dimly lit, little fresh air

Workdays lasted from 12-14 hours

Factory Conditions

American textile mills, coal mines, and steel foundries employed children as young as 7 or 8

They had no opportunities for educationWorked in unsafe conditions-often

gained lifelong health problemsBy 1880, more than one million children

between the ages of 10 and 15 worked for pay

Child Labor

How technology changed the way people lived

1. What is urbanization?

2. How did the Industrial Revolution help to bring about urbanization?

3. What two countries did many of the new immigrants come from?

4. List four of the common urban problems below. 

Northern Cities

Growth of cities due to movement of people from rural to urban

Factories

Western Europe: Germans & Irish

Filthy streets, no sewage, no clean water, fires

1. What were three reasons immigrants came to the U.S.?

2. Why did many Irish come to the U.S. during this time period?

 3. What jobs did the Irish usually do in the

U.S.?

A New Wave of Immigrants

Cheap land, skills=jobs, no survival at home

Famine

Construction, railroads, household workers

4. Why did many Germans come to the U.S. at this time?

5. Who were the nativists and what groups were they especially opposed to?

 6. What was the name of the nativist political

party in New York?

A New Wave of Immigrants

Dealt with Revolution

Against immigration, against Irish Catholics

Know-nothings

Know-Nothing Party:

“The Supreme

Order of the Star-

Spangled Banner”

Know-Nothing Party:

“The Supreme

Order of the Star-

Spangled Banner”

1. What were three examples of discrimination that African Americans faced in the North?

2. What was the name of the first newspaper owned and run by African Americans?

AF AM in the North

No voting, factories discriminated, and segregation

Freedom’s Journal

Affectsin the North

Urbanization Technology

Social Change