ARTISAN RESPONSE

1
ARTISAN RESPONSE

• Many tried to adapt older habits in an effort to
  achieve individual improvement
• Some converted traditions of apprenticeship into
  a new interest in education (as a means of
  self-improvement)
• Mechanics Institutes set up in England to
  provide technical and commercial training
• Many artisans purchased and read books and
  newspapers to improve their knowledge of their
  trade and social, economic, and political issues

Mechanics Institute, Tyneside, England
2
SAVING

• Artisans tried to improve themselves by saving
• Principal customers of new savings banks
  established in the 1850s and 1860s
• Responding to tightening market for masterships
  and also patterning themselves on values of the
  middle class
• Artisan interest in self-improvement, education,
  and saving was encouraged by middle class
  propagandists as the path to happiness and
  success
• Caught the attention of a class that already had
  a deep sense of pride and who wanted a respected
  place in a society increasingly dominated by the
  middle class

Early savings bank
3
NEW PURSUITS

• Some artisans left the working class altogether
• Became non-commissioned officers, or priests, or
  entered the lower professions
• Some even voluntarily entered the factory
  workforce
• Some artisans with specialized training were in
  high demand in metal and machine factories
• Blacksmiths and locksmiths
• Could earn more than journeymen, without losing
  their values of skill and pride in their work

4
RIGHT TO VOTE

• Increasingly demanded the vote
• Especially in countries where the middle class
  already possessed it
• Wanted to gain a voice in running the state and
  allow them to better protect themselves and
  promote their interests
• Wanted state support for more educational
  facilities
• Wanted state to take economic action on their
  behalf
• Also wanted to obtain respect from other elements
  of society

5
MUTUAL AID SOCIETIES

• Artisans drew on their old traditions of
  cooperation to improve their economic and social
  positions
• Earliest form was the mutual aid society
• Known as friendly societies in England
• Provided members with aid in illness and death
  and organized technical courses, libraries, and
  recreational programs
• Sometimes conducted strikes

6
UNIONISM I

• Artisan trades also formed unions to protect
  their interests
• Union activity escalated during the 1850s
• New Model Unions in England
• Unions of skilled workers that intentionally
  excluded factory workers
• Attempted to be respectable and solid
• Had large funds, professional officials
• Urged temperance, saving, and hard work
• Preferred negotiation and only organized strikes
  as a last resort

Robert Applegarth, one of the founders of New
Model Unionism
7
UNIONISM II

• Artisan unionism was a quiet, exclusive movement,
  operating on principles of collective benefit for
  members
• Very much in the artisan tradition
• It showed that at least some artisans were
  learning to use organization and moderate protest
  to win gains within the new economic order and to
  regain the voice over job conditions that they
  had lost with the abolition of guilds

Union poster
8
REVOLUTION

• Some artisans even became revolutionaries
• Majority of street fighters in the Revolution of
  1830, Revolution of 1848, and Paris Commune
  (1871) were artisans
• Although only a minority of artisans ever became
  active revolutionaries, they did provide a
  greater number of actual revolutionaries than any
  other urban group during the 19th century

9
MOTIVATIONS I

• Economic hardship often provided the trigger for
  artisan revolutionary activity
• Artisan goals were broad
• Covering political as well as economic demands
• In 1848, they demanded the creation of a
  democratic and social republic, sought
  protections from unemployment, and government
  support for workshops

10
ARTISAN SOCIALISM

• In 1848, many artisans were attracted to idea
  promoted by Louis Blanc in his The Organization
  of Work
• Emphasized small cooperative units of production
  working without elaborate equipment and
  distributing wealth equally among all members of
  he units
• Had distinct appeal to artisan traditions

11
IMPLICATION

• Artisans, pushed to near desperation by economic
  crisis, went beyond merely attempting to adapt
  themselves and their traditions to a new economic
  environment and instead actually tried to destroy
  that environment and remake society in the
  artisan image
• They failed
• But their involvement in the revolutions of the
  19th century reveals just how far they were
  willing to go to protect their status, lifestyle,
  and way of working from the threat posed by the
  rise of industrial capitalism

12
FACTORY WORKERS

• Factory workers were distinct from artisans
• By their rapid rate of growth
• By their work on new, faster-paced machines
• And by their lack of a collective tradition
• Few were highly skilled and most were from
  peasant backgrounds
• Places of work were larger and had less personal
  contact with their employers
• Had little contact with artisans, even when the
  latter worked in factories

13
ORIGINS

• Most factory workers were displaced peasants who
  could no longer survive in the countryside
• Moved to cities and into industry out of
  desperation
• Often miserable and confused in their new and
  alien environment
• Faced severe problems of adaptation

14
STANDARD OF LIVING QUESTION

• Were factory workers, despite their various
  hardships, better off in some respects than they
  or their parents had been out in the countryside?
• Did they experience a deterioration in conditions
  when entered the factory labor force?
• It cannot be denied that factory workers lived
  miserable lives by modern standards
• But whether they themselves thought they were
  miserable, judging by the standards they knew, is
  not clear

15
NET GAIN 0

• There was a deterioration of material conditions
  during the early Industrial Revolution
• But it occurred mainly among poor peasants who
  were hurt by rapid population growth and the
  decline of domestic manufacturing
• They seldom experienced a worsening of their
  condition when they entered the factories because
  they were pretty bad off to begin with and
  remained that way when they entered the factory

16
INSECURE LIFE

• Worst problem for factory workers was instability
  of conditions
• Sick workers were not paid and usually fired
• Elderly workers experienced decline in earnings
• Machine breakdowns caused layoffs
• Laid-off workers sometimes went back to
  countryside to look for work
• Others joined roaming bands to beg and/or steal
  food
• Some relied on charity
• Others ate potatoes instead of bread and ignored
  rent payments
• Others pawned possessions
• Factory working class life was punctuated by a
  number of personal and general disasters that
  created a sense of insecurity

17
HOUSING

• Factory worker housing was horrible
• Rural cottages had been flimsy, small, and
  befouled by animals
• But urban housing was worse
• Factory workers lived in filthy slums, often
  sharing a single room with other families
• Maybe not the worst housed in cities but their
  space was limited and related services were
  lacking
• Furnishings were also meager

18
HEALTH CONDITIONS

• Factory workers also suffered from poor health
• High rates of infant mortality
• Which resulted in low life expectancy
• Rapidly aged due to illness
• Decrepit by age 40
• However, health conditions among poor peasants
  were also miserable
• Therefore, it is not clear whether factory
  workers saw their health situation as necessarily
  worse than what they had been used to in the
  countryside

19
UPSIDE?

• Factory workers also experienced some significant
  improvements in some aspects of their lives
• There diets were limited but meat consumption was
  higher than it had been in the countryside and
  they are more wheat bread
• They consumed more coffee, sugar, and alcoholic
  drinks than peasants
• They generally had at least one change of
  clothing
• Liked to dress up on Sundays and no longer looked
  like the traditional urban poor

20
WAGES

• Factory wages were better than those out in the
  countryside
• But they still were not great
• Once necessities were paid for, there was not
  much left
• Wages did go up over time
• Rose in England and France after 1840
• Began to rise in Germany during the 1850s
• Began to rise in Russia during the 1890s

21
THE ANSWER

• Material conditions for factory workers, though
  bad, were still better than their backgrounds had
  led them to expect
• In normal economic times, the material conditions
  of factory workers were not a subject for
  articulate concern for them
• Many were not interested in maximizing their
  incomes
• They did enjoy a few luxuries but they otherwise
  retained their rural expectations
• Many better paid workers took a few days of work
  instead of continuing to work and earn more money
  than they needed for subsistence and their few
  little luxuries

22
LIVE FOR TODAY

• Factory workers developed a living for the
  present mentality
• Which would endure for a long time
• Saving meant little to them
• More interested in immediate enjoyment
• Need to compensate for hard work, the insecurity
  of their existence, economic cycles, and the
  constant threat of illness and disease helps to
  explain this attitude

23
TENSION IN THE FACTORY

• Factory life created a conflict between the
  traditional work rhythm that the labor force
  brought with them from the countryside and the
  new pace of machines and the work ethic of
  entrepreneurs
• Steady pressure was placed on factory workers to
  discipline them to the new industrial pace
• But workers still preserved important elements of
  their older work traditions

24
HARSH ENVIRONMENT

• Physical environment of the factory was harsh
• Machines were unscreened and it was easy to lose
  a finger in spinning gears and belts
• Textile work involved intense heat and high
  levels of dust
• Mining and chemical industries involved exposure
  to toxic gases
• Employers avoided any safety precaution that
  might cost them money or slow down production
• Factory workers, however, wee accustomed to job
  hazards
• Did not blame dangers of factory work on the
  factory system or industrial capitalism

25
WORKING HOURS

• Work hours were long
• 15 hours a day in textile factories
• Few days off
• Work and commuting consumed virtually all the
  waking hours of factory workers
• New sense of time dramatized by the factory
  whistle
• Gates locked 15 minutes after whistle, leaving
  tardy workers without pay for the day
• Working hours declined a bit in the years that
  followed the early Industrial Revolution
• Textile workday down to 12 hours in France and
  England by 1850

26
WORK ROUTINE

• Most factory workers did not find their long
  hours that unusual
• Had worked sunrise to sunset in the countryside
  and had worked up to 18 hours a day in domestic
  industry
• What was new for factory workers was not the long
  hours but the pace of work
• Fast operating machines did not allow workers to
  take breaks when they felt like it

27
PASSIVE RESISTANCE

• Employers used fines, strict supervision, and
  incentives like piece rates to force workers to
  work steadily and reliably
• Workers, however, found various ways to
  counteract this
• New workers still took breaks when they felt like
  it (despite fines)
• Also stretched lunch and breaks beyond
  established limits
• Took off work after they made enough money for
  the week
• Young and single workers often simply quit (and
  did so often)

28
INCOMPLETE DISCIPLINE

• New factory discipline was thus incomplete
• Workers were pressured, but not yet forced, to
  adopt a totally new work ethic
• They took individual measures to keep some of
  their traditional sense of control over their
  work
• New conditions, such as sheer noise of machines,
  disturbed workers who were used to singing and
  talking on the job
• But, for many, there were means available for
  keeping their new factory jobs within the bounds
  of traditional expectations

29
LACK OF COLLECTIVE SUPPORT

• Attempt to use traditional values and customs to
  counter the new factory environment also produced
  tension
• Moreover, factory workers had to adapt by
  themselves
• Many of their collective sources of support had
  either disappeared, weakened, or changed when
  they left the countryside for the urban factory
• Example urban churches seemed too fancy and
  strange to people used to simple peasant religion

30
ALCOHOL

• In this new and confusing environment, where
  traditional sources of collective support were
  breaking down, many workers turned to drink
• Bars were dirty and crowded, but they did provide
  some social life and escape from an ugly room
• Many workers spent Sunday and Monday drinking
• Workers often drank to excess as a way to find
  solace in their otherwise dreary and disoriented
  lives

31
ADAPTATION

• Factory workers were characterized by a high
  degree of poverty but their ability to adapt
  their traditions to new conditions was amazing
• This allowed them to endure factory life
• But adaptation and disorientation inhibited
  protest
• Workers who were proud of their work did not want
  to risk everything by going on strike
• Workers who sought solace in liquor might engage
  in outbursts of anger but were incapable of
  articulating their discontent

32
GRIEVANCES

• The exact number of factory workers who held
  articulate grievances cannot be determined
• Most would have said they did not like their jobs
• But, on the other hand, most did not expect
  pleasure in their work in the first place since
  traditional work had been boring and arduous too
• Even if workers did have grievances, it was hard
  to translate them into active protest

33
OBSTACLES TO PROTEST

• Until the 1850s, most European governments
  outlawed strikes and unions and rigorously
  repressed any sort of worker agitation
• Employers fired potential labor leaders and often
  blacklisted them
• They called in troops, even when agitation was
  merely threatened
• Often tried to outlast a strike or retracted any
  concession they might have temporarily been
  forced to grant once the strike was over

34
TYPE OF PROTEST

• Factory workers were not as successful as
  artisans in overcoming these obstacles to protest
• Lacked powerful collective tradition of artisans
• Therefore slow to organize mutual aid societies
  and such
• Also less literate than artisans
• Less open to political propagandists
• Much more common for factory workers to express
  their discontent individually than by combining
  together in protest action

35
GRADUAL BUT INCOMPLETE CHANGE

• Gradually, more workers did acquire the ability
  to protest in an organized and coherent manner
• Revolutions of 1848 spread a new consciousness to
  some factory workers
• Railroad workers participated in June Days
  insurrection
• Factory worker strikes during the Second Empire
  involved large numbers of metal and textile
  workers
• However, few permanent organizations arose within
  the factory labor force to give leadership and
  coherence to worker discontent

36
SUMMARY

• There were strong limitations on factory worker
  protest potential during the first decades of the
  Industrial Revolution
• Protest required a sense of community and
  tradition and factory workers generally lacked
  this
• Thus, whether they were satisfied or not or
  whether they experienced an improvement in living
  conditions or not, workers had to try to adapt to
  their new situation
• They could not successfully opposed the
  Industrial Revolution and few even tried
• They concentrated instead on finding new sources
  of status and pleasure, such as clothing and meat
  every Sunday
• Working class culture would be dominated by these
  values for a long time