Life as a Mill Town Worker During the Industrial Revolution

1816:

Hello, my name is Elizabeth Crabtree. I work at a cotton mill in Great Britain. My job at the mill is doffing, but I'll get into that later. I'm twenty years old, but I'm not married, yet (I'm still crossing my fingers). I live with my mother and father in a village of mill workers, which happens to be less than a mile away from the mill that I work at. My father works at the coal mine and my mother works at the same cotton mill that I work at. I had a brother but he passed away about twelve years ago. My family is very poor and the details of my life may be disturbing to those who are looking in from the outside, but it is indeed my life and the only way that myself and my family are able to get by without starving to death.

The place that I call home is nothing short of a over cramped hole in the wall. The village that I live in, looks as though the people who built it, were trying to get as many homes in as little space as they could. My home is always very wet, even in the summer time. For some reason the walls and floors are never dry. The ceiling is very low, it's so low that my father isn't able to fully stand straight up. But the thing that sucks the most about the place that I call home, is that it isn't fully mine. I have to share my house and bedroom with other people that work at the mill. Since we all work in shifts, when I work they sleep and when they work I sleep. I think I share the my bedroom with about twelve different people (Moss).

Another thing that I think is absolutely disgusting, is that our entire village has to share the privy and the midden. A privy is a deep hole dug in the corner of a yard and midden is a heap against a wall. I find this the most disgusting detail of my life because it's shared by at least a hundred people. Sometimes when it rains a lot, the privy overflows into the roads. People are supposed to come to empty it out and clean the area, but they never come. This one time the privy overflowed so much that it leaked into the cellars of some houses. It wasn't until two weeks later that people came to take care of the problem (Moss).

Nature is at its worst these days. I remember when I was a little girl the air was crisp and actually had a pleasant smell to it. Not anymore. Since there are so many coal mines and factories that have chimneys, thereÐ''s this dark cloud of smoke that's always in the middle of the sky. This has also affected a lot of peoples health. I know a few guys that work in those factories and coal mines that have died because of respiratory diseases (Moss). Actually a lot of the people that work in those places die really young too. I remember a couple of months ago, a boy that worked at the coal mine down the road, died at age sixteen. The village was shocked because he died so young and it was unexpected.

I started working at the cotton mill when I was eight years old. At that time I was making about two shillings and three pence per week. I worked there with my brother Matthew at the time. We both were scavengers. A scavenger is someone that crawls underneath the machines, while they're still in operation, and collects the cotton that might have gotten loose from the rest (Moss). My brother, who was seven at the time, got caught in the machine while it was still moving and was killed. It was so hard for me and my family to deal with the loss of my brother, but we didn't have time to mourn his death, we had to go right back to work, or else they would dock our pay and we couldn't afford it.

Those first few weeks of working at the mill were extremely rough, because I wasn't used to being in the cotton mill atmosphere. It is impossible for someone that's not used to working in a cotton factory to last more than ten minutes without having to go outside for fresh air. The air inside of the mill is very poorly ventilated and full of dust from flax and flue from cotton. Also, another thing that is hard to get used to is the loud sounds and whirl of the machines (Lavalette). But just like everything else, I got used to it and it never really bothered me since then.

When I turned fifteen, I was moved up from being a scavenger to a doffer. A doffer stops the frames, when the frames are done and takes the flyers off, and then takes the full bobbins off, and carries them to the roller; then puts an empty one on, and sets the frame going again (Sadler). This is all that I do, all day, over and over again. Sometimes I wish I were still a scavenger because there was a rest period that we got between scavenging. As a doffer I have to remain standing all day without any rest, because the frames run so quick and there are so many of them. Also, being a doffer is a lot of pressure. If you were to miss a frame, you would get strapped. I've missed a couple of frames before. I got the beating of my life too, because of it (Sadler).

Eating at work is another story. We aren't able to eat while on the job, which is all day. Therefore, in order to work at a cotton mill you must be able to go a long period of time without eating. Being as poor as I am I don't have a lot of food to begin with, but with the little food that I do have, I am unable to eat it. After a few hours at he mill the food that I bring from home gets covered in dust and also unappetizing. Since it is no use to take home the over-looker feeds it to the pigs. For dinner we aren't able to leave the job site so we must eat there in the mill. We are allowed forty minutes to eat, then we are required to get right back to work (Sadler).

During the first half of the year, when the mill isn't thronged, I worked around fourteen hours a day. From six in the morning to seven in the evening. Then during the second part of the year, when the mill is thronged, I work around seventeen hours a day. From five in the morning to nine in the evening (Sadler).

We have a late policy at the mill. When someone shows up late to work they are quartered. Being quartered means that if we are a quarter of an hour late, they would take off half an hour off our pay and since we only make a penny an hour, they would be taking half a penny every quarter of an hour we are late (Sadler). The hard thing about having to wake up that early to go to work, is that we don't have a clock. Usually if someone is late to work, they are beaten. I've been late a couple of times, but I've never been beaten for it. Thank God it hasn't happened to me.

1855:

A lot has changed since 1820. I am still working at the same cotton mill, that's less than a mile from my home. We live in better housing conditions because the government