As part of learning about the industrial revolution, and factory conditions in England, we did a live chat with two museum workers, Jamie and Darren who showed us around the Museum of Science & industry in Manchester England. From this we learned a lot about the conditions of factories and the lives of the people who worked there during the industrial revolution. In order to prepare for this chat, we did a investigated the museum website to learn more about the museum, and Richard Arkwright, the inventor of the spinning frame.We also watched a video introduction of Jamie showing the mills, and the process of making cloth, and all the machines that are involved in that process. While watching this video we took notes of all the vocab in which we heard, and later found the definitions, so we would be more familiar with the terms that they would be using during our live chat. The last thing we did to prepare was write some questions that we could ask Jamie during our video chat.
From the chat I learned a lot about the textile process and the dangers of working in a mill. We got to see many machines, and even watch some of them in action. The textile process was very long, and required lots of machines, and workers. People would work in the mills as long as they could so that they could get out of poverty. The process started with kids taking the tangles and the dirt out of the cotton, which was first done by using a brush, but later there was a machine that was created to complete this part of the process.
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| This is a picture of the bobbins on the machines that children would have to clean while the machine was being operated. |
There were both positives and negatives of industrialization of textile production during this time period. The mills brought in lots of jobs that lead people out of poverty, however there were many negative consequences and health risks that came with industrialization. First diseases were spreading as a cause of urbanization, and when someone got sick they would be unable to work. Also working in the mills brought loads of risks to worker’s health, such as loss of hearing from the loud noises that the machines would make, and lung diseases from the constant inhalation of cotton fibers, which was especially a problem if you worked in the room where the cotton was being pulled apart. Along with that, the machines themselves weren't safe and often would cause severe injuries. because children would clean the machine while they were being operated, there was a big risk of a hand getting caught and mangles, or long hair and clothing to get pulled into the machines. the machines caused many injuries and even deaths of the children in the mills. Lastly, woman working machines had to change the shuttles of that machine every six minutes, and to do so they would have to suck a piece of thread that had cancer causing oils on it through the whole of the shuttle. This caused them to be breathing in fibers causing lung cancer, swallowing oils that caused mouth and throat cancers, and often times they would chip their teeth on the hard wooden shuttles if they weren't careful.
Overall the experience of chatting with an outside expert all the way from england was really amazing, and the chat was very informative. Doing this google chat really helped me to get a better understanding of the work that would be done in the mills, and all the dangers and health risks that went along with it. I learned a lot about the daily lives of mill workers and the textile process that i hadn't known before. I think that this live chat is a really great way to learn a lot no matter what topic it is, and it would be fun to do it in the future.
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