Question

Part 1: Post a Response

America’s Industrial Revolution transformed all sectors of the economy and changed society. In the text (Chapter 17 p. 310-317), some of the business practices of the late 1800s and early 1900s are described. There are pros and cons to these developments. On one hand, they streamlined costs and made goods and new products available to many more consumers. But, there were also consequences—some unintended.

Choose one of these two new problems introduced by the American Industrial Revolution.

The development of monopolies instead of a competitive business market.
Unsafe and oppressive work conditions.

Then, in a full paragraph or two:

Identify your chosen problem.
Discuss a specific example from that period that clearly illustrates the chosen problem and a negative consequence of it. What did the government do about this—and what should it have done?
Identify a similar problem or example that exists in the USA today.
Identify the source(s) where you read about the problem.

Answer 1

Problem: Unsafe and oppressive work conditions.

The existence of unsafe and oppressive work conditions during the American Industrial Revolution was one of the main social problems of this time. During these years, workers often had to work very long hours in environments that were dangerous, unpleasant, or otherwise oppressive. Women and children were often paid very little for their work, and accidents were common.

Eventually, the government introduced laws that regulated the amount of hours a worker could work, the conditions of the work environment and the pay that they should receive. A similar problem today exists in some areas of industry in the US, such as the lack of regulation surrounding migrant agricultural workers.

Answer 2

Problem chosen: Unsafe and oppressive work conditions.

The American Industrial Revolution brought several consecuences and one of them is the unhuman work conditions. For example the factories where trains were made or metallurgical industries made their employees work from 10 to sometimes 14 hours, using heavy tools and equipment with most of the times no protection, eating a few and not healthy food. Workers used to do this heavy duties 5 or 6 days a week and often with a few hours to rest between one shift and another. This bad work conditions destroys a person not only physically but also psychologically because their entire body does not rest and causes fatigue, malnutrition, low defences and with this comes diseases.

Fortunately, this conditions have changed and now people work 8 hours and eventhough, they can do a heavy work like in every industry, people now take precautions in order to protect them selves from the risks of the labor. The workers are given a time to eat healthy food and rest a little bit to get more energy to continue their tasks. Nevertheless, some work sectors have not changed much their conditions like for example, the work on the countryside where people plant the fruits and vegetables that we eat and feed the animals that we also use to feed us, still has badwork conditions, kids start working on this fields since they are 12 years old so they end up quiting school, and even when they are adults, they still get bad payments. The families of the people that work on the fields are very poor, they received no medical attention, no education, they eat a few and unhealthy food. This issues must change otherwise we will still lose a lot of people because of diseases and not medicall attention and government does nothing about it.

Source: www.saf-unite.org