The Factory System and Urbanization in the First Industrial Revolution
The factory system and the urbanization that came with it were the most visible social consequences of the First Industrial Revolution. Within the space of a few generations, millions of people moved from the countryside to the new industrial cities, and the cities grew at unprecedented rates. Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, and Sheffield in Britain, and Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Detroit in the United States, all grew from small market towns into major industrial cities in the space of a few decades.
The factory system concentrated labor under one roof and one source of power, and the new industrial cities grew up around it. The pages below look at what conditions were like inside the mills and what life was like in the new towns, with links to detailed articles on both.
The Rise of the Factory System
The factory system was a new form of organizing production that emerged in the late eighteenth century. Before the factory, most production was organized either in the home, where workers produced goods on their own account and sold them to merchants, or in small workshops, where craftsmen worked with their apprentices and journeymen. The factory brought together workers, machines, and power in a single building, and it required new forms of discipline, supervision, and management.
The first factories were built by Richard Arkwright in the 1770s. Arkwright’s Cromford Mill, opened in 1771 in the Derwent Valley, was the first water-powered cotton-spinning factory in the world, and it became the model for the new factory system. The article on factory conditions describes the conditions in the early mills in more detail.
The factory system spread rapidly through the textile industry over the first three decades of the nineteenth century, and it was gradually adopted in other industries, including iron, paper, and engineering. By 1840, the factory was the dominant form of industrial organization in Britain, and it was beginning to spread to the rest of Europe and the United States.
Why Factories?
The factory system developed for several reasons. The new machines were large and expensive, and they could not be operated efficiently in a domestic setting. The new sources of power, especially the steam engine, were also too large and too expensive to be used in individual homes, and they required large, fixed installations.
The factory allowed workers and machines to be brought together in a single building, with a single source of power driving many machines through a system of belts and shafts. The result was a dramatic increase in productivity, and the cost of manufactured goods fell sharply.
Conditions in the Early Factories
Conditions in the early factories were often brutal. The working day was long, typically twelve to sixteen hours, and the work was physically demanding and often dangerous. Children, sometimes as young as five or six, worked alongside adults in many factories. The article on factory conditions describes these conditions in detail, including the dangers, the long hours, and the use of child labor.
The Growth of Industrial Cities
The growth of the factory system was closely tied to the growth of the new industrial cities. The factories needed large numbers of workers, and these workers had to be housed somewhere. The result was a rapid growth of cities near the new factories. The article on urban migration describes the great migration of rural workers to the new industrial cities.
The growth of the industrial cities created serious problems. Housing was in short supply, and much of the new housing was of poor quality. Diseases such as cholera, typhus, and tuberculosis were common. The new industrial cities became notorious for their slums, their pollution, and their high mortality rates.
The Campaign for Factory Reform
The conditions in the early factories led to a long campaign for factory reform. The campaign was driven by a coalition of reformers, including evangelical Christians, utilitarians, trade unionists, and politicians, who argued that the state had a responsibility to regulate the conditions of work in the new factories.
The first major victory of the factory reform movement was the Factory Act of 1833, which established a system of factory inspectors and limited the working hours of children in textile mills. The Mines and Collieries Act of 1842 banned women and children under ten from working underground in mines. The Ten Hours Bill of 1847 limited the working day of women and children in factories to ten hours.
The Legacy of the Factory System
The factory system transformed not only the production of goods but also the experience of work. The new patterns of work, with their long hours, strict discipline, and physical demands, became the standard for industrial employment in Britain and around the world. The factory also created a new industrial working class, with its own culture, its own organizations, and its own political demands.