Friday, March 7, 2014

How did factories change the nature of labor itself?

Before the factory system was implemented, the domestic system was used for production, in which people performed all the work. This system could not keep up with demand, and was soon replaced by the factory system. The factory system used machines that people looked over. The system had a faster production rate and anticipated demand. For example, under the domestic system a woman could buy fabric and give it to a worker to make clothes in her size. Through the factory system, factory owners would buy lots of fabric and produce clothes in multiple, common sizes. The factory system used large, powered machines to complete mass production. Factories began to implement assembly lines where one person controlled a machine to produce a fraction of the final product. Products including ships, trains, radios, etc. were all created by multiple machines in factories.

1 comment:

  1. Great start! Look to include new ways that was labor was used and who was doing the actual labor. Also let's look at the kind of labor being done.

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