Second Industrial Revolution
Second Industrial Revolution
Solomon Camacho October 17, 2012 M.S 45 Class: 801

People out there better appreciate their average paycheck! Back then people worked more than 13 hours a day and got paid in the range of 20-40 dollars. That’s poor in America today. My parents get paid 2,000 dollars every 2 weeks. Do you see the difference? I feel bad because the immigrant kids would be right there working with their parents in factories that were hot and nasty! People had horrible working conditions and were being abused of their rights. What I don’t understand is that immigrants came to America for freedom! The Second Industrial Revolution gave them a chance to work but they were better of in their original country that they came from. I’m just glad that our community changed from the 1800’s till now because people got what they deserve. That’s how you run a good country and America wasn’t representing that back then. I guess immigrants realized that the reality was that America wasn’t a piece of fresh pie. The Second Industrial Revolution caused child labor, deaths, the way we have our food and more. That’s why I believe that this negative effects to the country. I feel angry when I hear that people around the 1800-1900’s had to work in such horrible working conditions. If you’re working in places that ha0ve hot muggy air, chemicals all around, and no type of cleanliness then why work? Workers were inexperienced working on machines that they didn’t even know how to operate. There basically putting themselves into risk of certain diseases that can develop later on because of the chemicals that they deal with. I know that I wouldn’t want to be covered in grease or have to smell the stench of some people just for 20-40 dollars per 13-16 hours. Seriously, working for that long. That’s almost half of your day to get a little money. Me personally would prefer to steal from people than putting myself in a position of a horrible working lifestyle. Even though people had disgusting working conditions, they did have unions fighting for them. That doesn’t necessarily mean that business owners stopped giving the workers low pay but it gave support to people who felt like it was unfair. Workers probably liked having to know that there is someone fighting for us so one of these days we will get what we deserve. The unions had names like “Knights of Labor” and The American Federation of Labor. These unions had immigrants that experienced the poor working conditions like the president of AFL, Samuel Gompers. They all worked together to negotiate with the government to see what they could do to improve working conditions. There were different kinds of unions. Some negotiated, some went public and did strikes, some even educated the workers so they could know that they shouldn’t treat us like this. In those factories it was very over- crowded. If you think of it everyone is trying to get a job and the mangers would take as much as they want. They didn’t care how many people they had as long as the company was making mass production. This made the factory humid, muggy, smelly, and claustrophobic while the immigrants work! I can imagine how that smelt because I bet hygiene wasn’t a big thing in the past. Even the kids were dirty. This just breaks my heart to know that kids had to work at such a young age. This can lead America into a slope going DOWN. Kids will mature to fast and this could have an effect on their lives forever. What about if some kids can’t handle the work that they commit suicide or treat their own kids horrible in the future. That can cause child abuse which is sad to know. I believe that children aren’t even smart enough to be working in the first place. Child Labor is never right, period! Especially if you have them in places that’s over crowded. People would say that this would mature the kids and teach them about hard work. This is so hypercritical because they wouldn’t want their kids to work like that. That’s why kids have chores not real adult jobs that can stress them out! If I had to I would only if I was poor and my family needed money. Other than that no one wants to put themselves in that position as a kid or adult. Sometimes I picture the kids running away because these immigrants didn’t want to live like a slave when they came to America for freedom! Change of lifestyle and poverty. Wasn’t that the picture for them but now when they came to America reality kicked in. Runaway kids probably had a better life supporting themselves and doing everything they can to change their life period. They could find someone with sympathy to help them and don’t have to work anymore. Another negative effect of the Second Industrial Revolution is the deaths it caused. Now thousands of people die every day but this cause to many problems for people to die. One, they had un-experienced workers on machines that they don’t even know what do. The key word is un-experienced. Why would you have workers that don’t know what their doing. It makes no sense what so ever. This can cause bad injury’s which can lead to deaths. Two, the workers can kill the managers out of rage. This starts riots and can lead to a civil war in certain states like New York and Illinois. People can fight for there rights but that can bring to much drama. Three, the workers are hungry while they work and can die of hunger. Four, people who have claustrophobia can have anxiety attacks. Lastly, the workers can get frustrated with each other and it would turn into a “Jail Fight”. All of these are too many problems that can cause deaths. That’s not good for no one. Deaths can benefit in some ways. Since the factories are crowded and if people die the more space workers have. This is somewhat harsh but true because people die every day. This can benefit a worker because if they had problems, that particular worker isn’t there no more. Death can even benefit the owner of the company the immigrant works in because he don’t have to give them any more money even if the money was low pay. If people didn’t die this world would have been over populated millions of years ago! Now the most important negative effect of The Second Industrial Revolution is how it changed the way we have food today. In the past the fruits and veggies were fresh. The meat was clean and natural size. Today we don’t have that fresh food that people use to have. Companies grows food by putting chemicals in everything. They grow plants with chemicals, make the meat size bigger with chemicals, chemicals for everything else. They do this because of “Mass Production” but that’s not the natural way we were supposed to eat food. I wonder how a fruit taste back in the days. I imagine it was probably fresher then now, juicy, and pulp. I know there has to be a healthier way to grow mass production without chemicals. I know whoever finds a way would change the whole entire food system and be a billionaire. These chemicals can make e-coli and that’s no good. Like even if it takes longer to make a way for better food then do it. Just go back to growing slow and fresh! People are getting obsessed because of the bigger portions and now they don’t crave the appropriate size of vegetables, meat, and even fruits and don’t crave food that not really natural! Now people are confused because they don’t know if the chicken is real even though it says 100% white chicken meat. To me that’s just sad. I think I speak for a lot of people when I say to go back to the old fashion way of growing food so it can be healthier. I wish we can get the 1800’s food back! A company said “they had to because people like there meat and they need to have a mass production”. This was Perdue, a famous meat company and even one of there chicken babysitters snitched. She explained how they make the chicken fatter. This is on a movie called “Food Inc.” People did needed to eat so if they waited and try to find another way to grow the chicken people will get mad. It takes to long so the stores would be sold out and the chicken will be getting smaller. Since the company brand is sold out people will buy another brand and that will make Perdue lose business. All people argue about this topic: If the Second Industrial Revolution is good or not. I believe that both people are right period. I’m negative because of the reason that I don’t like child labor, un-fresh food, long hours for low pay, and nasty working conditions. Other people look at the bigger picture and say what it has produced like skyscrapers, elevators, and railroads. I just feel if you didn’t do right building it, its not really important about what it produced. My friend Jaelon was positive and said “ The Second Industrial Revolution made lots of steel so people can build a lot of things.” I don’t understand how this is a good point because he acting like we could of never did that. It would have been faster but at least people can feel good that they built the things we need the right way. It’s the way you made the steel. Go behind the scenes and I would wait for a while so they can treat workers better. No one wants to give the immigrants credit of the hard work they did. That’s unfair to me and without them we would have no railroads as long as they are because no one would of worked that hard. The immigrants did it for a reason because they needed that money or food or whatever the owner supplied. We would have developed elevators and skyscrapers but they didn’t do it right. Every time I think of the Second Industrial Revolution, negative comes to mind. I would have loved to been in one of the unions because I would had fought for the immigrants as bad as I can. The bad thing about is that some effects that The Second Industrial Revolution caused is still here today.