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There were the beef-loggers, who carried two-hundred-pound ratters into the refrigerator-cars; a fearful kind Of work, that began at four o’clock in the morning, and that wore out the most powerful men in a few years. There were those who worked in the chilling rooms, and whose special disease was rheumatism; the time limit that a man could work in the chilling rooms was said to be five years. Men and Women -people had to work for about 12 to 16 hours a day -They worked under very harsh working conditions. The machines had no safety devices workers were constantly at risk of losing a finger, a limb or their lives -Workers were exposed to filthy air filled with lint with damaged their lungs. -Women were paid half of what they would pay a man. Children and Family -With the father going to work in a different location as a result of the industrial revolution family relations were weakened and discipline suffered as a result -Children had to put extremely long hours: -Also had to work 12 hours and 6 days a week without any holidays off.
Because of this, the children working in mines sometimes fell asleep and were crushed to death or badly injured by the mine carts. -The work conditions: poor and miserable. -Some children got beaten -Endless hunger -No sleep time -They were very poor paid and worked in dangerous and violent surroundings. -There was no law to protect workers, and even when a few were passed they were rarely followed.
An excerpt from the Jungle explaining daily life of children during the industrial revolution: Hour after hour, day after day, year after year, it was fated that [the child] should stand upon a certain square of floor from seven in the morning till half-past five, making never a motion and thinking never a thought, save for the setting of lard cans. In summer the stench of the warm lard would be nauseating, and in winter the cans all but freeze to his naked little fingers in the unheated cellar… And for this, at the end of the week, he would carry home three dollars.. -his pay at the rate of five cents per hour… ”