...Labor Struggle At the middle of the 20th century, factory owners were faced with a dilemma. Due to industrialization, they could now produce output far greater than they could ever imagine, but the demand for these goods only continued to rise. What could they possible do to produce more and keep this output up? Simple! Hire more than enough people to work in the factories. More people means more production which means more profit. Then another problem aroused. Even though I’m producing much more, im not seeing the incrase of profit I expected because im paying it out to the employees. What should I do? Simple! Cut their wages! Good, now we are finally starting to see some decent cash flow. At the turning point of the 19th century, we began to see a major clash between two factions, the corporations running the factories, and the workers who toiled there day in and day out. But why the conflict? One problem that lead to this clash was the conditions that these workers had to deal with everyday. Most of the workers were young woman or children, and the work they performed was grueling and sometimes dangerous. When Charles Dickens visited the town of Lowell in 1871, he described it as a very beautiful industrial town, with shops and churches that appeared to have been just constructed the day before his arrival and no worse than what he saw over sea’s. He was noted to say, “I saw a baby of some weeks or ten days old at a street corner, I found myself unconsciously asking where...
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