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Mill Life

Mill Life

Assessment

Presentation

Social Studies

8th Grade

Hard

Created by

Joseph Anderson

FREE Resource

6 Slides • 4 Questions

1

Industrial Revolution: Changes in Working Life

2

Mills Changed Workers Lives

  • Mill owners could not find people to work in factories because other jobs were avaliable

  • Slater (mill owner) began hiring entire families

    • Filled labor needs at low cost

    • Adults and children worked in mills

    • Children worked for cheap allowing a profit

    • Rhode Island System: Hiring families and dividing factory work into simple tasks​

3

  • ​Samuel Slater and his brother created a mill town Slatersville

    • Mill working families moved there to live and work​

    • Was a fully functioning town​

Some text here about the topic of discussion.

Slatersville

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4

Fill in the Blank

The strategy of hiring families and dividing work into simple tasks became known as the ______________ system.

5

Open Ended

What problem did Slater have in his mills? How did he solve it?

6

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​This advertisement appeared in a Massachusetts newspaper in 1823 requesting that families come work at a factory.

7

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  • The Lowell System was based on water-powered ​textile mills that employed young, unmarried women from local farms. The system included a loom that could both spin threat and weave cloth in the same mill.

    • A chance to earn their own money

    • "Lowell Girls"​

  • Lived in boarding houses, room and meals provided

    Encouraged to take classes in their free time at the women's club​

  • Cotton dust began causing health issues​

The Lowell System

8

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  • Factories produced low-priced goods, hard for shops to compete.

  • Worker wages dropped, immigrants from poorer countries were willing to work for less

    • Financial Panic of 1837: many unemplyed competed for jobs​

  • Trade Unions: groups that tried to improve pay and working conditions

    • Employers didnt want to hire union workers= cost eliminated competition

    • Strikes: staged protests refusing work until demands are met

    • Police and courts generally suported factories, not those on strike​

Workers Organize

9

Multiple Choice

Name of the system that employed unmarried women from family farms to run mills.

1

Rhode Island System

2

Lowell System

3

Mill System

4

Cabot System

10

Fill in the Blank

Where did the "Lowell GIrls" live?

Industrial Revolution: Changes in Working Life

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