Would You Let Your Child Work in the Factories?

We did a lot to prepare for the MOSI Live Google Hangout chat. One day we watched a video of Jamie giving us a brief tour of the factory and  explaining some of the tools they used back then. During the video we made a list words that he used that we have never heard of before. After the video, we looked up all the words so that that when we would actually do the live chat we would know what he was talking about. Then the next day, in our groups we thought of some questions that we would want to ask him when we had the choice.

I learned a lot from the live chat with Jamie. I learned a lot about the hand loom and how it was used. It was used to weave cloth and it was operated by using petals which was very hard physical work. Since you would do this constantly all day many people ended up developing arthritis. Most children would comb fiber strands and get all the dirt out, since it did not require a lot of experience. The children would try to find the longest strands of fiber because they are better for spinning, the short fibers were called trash. The hand looms would be passed down from father to son and it is very valuable in the families. I also learned that Arkwright did not actually invent the water frame, he just improved it but he was the one who made the money. The water frame thins out fibers, then twists the fibers and puts it on a bobbin.

This is a picture of what the bobbins look like from the live video chat with Jamie:

I learned that there were also there were many risks and dangers to working in these factories. The working conditions were horrible, it was very unsanitary, there were many diseases spreading and you would breathe in a lot of the cotton fibers. People were working in the factories for 12 hours eventually your lungs would just stop working because of all the cotton fibers you would inhale and soon you would die, most people did not live past 30. The machines were also very dangerous. The oils they used were also very dangerous, it caused mouth, throat and lung cancer. Your clothing could get caught in the machines, they could damage your hearing because they were so loud. Children had to clean the machines while they were running, their hair would get caught and be ripped out.

Children would have to clean this machine above while it was running. Children’s hands would have to in between them while they are spinning very fast, many hands would get caught in these machines. If someone was injured they would be put on the street with whatever money they had and they got no support. Children would mainly clean machines because they were small enough to fit under them and it didn’t require any skills. Many orphans were sold to work in the factories instead of children with parents because the parents would not let them work there.

I think I did learn more from a discussion with and outside export because you can actually see the real machines that the factory workers used. I thought it was cool how we were talking with someone who lives on the other side of the world in a different country and it actually worked. I would do this again with different experts on different topics throughout the year.

What Can the Viewer Take Away?

This week in class we played the roles of museum curators and we built our own exhibits from a time in the Industrial Revolution.

The first thing that we had to do as museum curators is analyze your specific documents and pictures. This is important because you have to make sure that the sources are reliable and try to figure out what the author of either a document or picture wants the viewer to take away from it. My group's exhibit was all about child labour and the harsh working and living conditions. We had two different documents, one was "Bobbin Girls, 1794" and the other one was "The Factory Act, 1833." The "Bobbin Girls,1794" document is all about how the author doesn't think it is right to send their girls away at such a young age, but their parents have no choice but to send them away because they don't have enough money. "The Factory Act" lists many strict rules for the young children who work in the mills by restricting who can work there and for how long. We also had many pictures depicting the harsh treatment at the factories. One pictures is a picture of children in a coal mine in 1853, this picture shows the harsh conditions in the coal mines/factories and what the children have to do. Another picture is a picture of a child crawling through the mines dragging a cart filled with rocks, at the bottom of the picture it says, “Children had leather belts slung around them with a chain attached so that they could pull loads.” There was also a chart that shows the age distribution from 1818-1819 to the present, it shows how most kids started working at the age of 10 back then but now most people start working at the age of 21. The last picture we have its a pictures of young kids working at the Georgia textile mills in 1909, it shows how the kids are so small and can’t reach the top so they have to stand on top of the machines which can be potentially dangerous. The title of the exhibit is “Is the Pain worth the Gain?”, this is saying that is harming young children really worth getting the work done. I hope that when people see our exhibit they realize how bad child labour really was and how common it was.

Here is a picture of our exhibit:

There were also many other very good exhibits. One of the exhibits was called Making Money, Destroying Neighborhoods, this title is very intriguing and it made me wonder why people were destroying neighborhoods. This exhibit was mainly about the new machines that were being built and how it was effecting the environment, what shocked me the most was a picture of buildings on both sides of a river with a lot of smoke coming out of it; the water looked very dirty and polluted, I’m surprised that the people didn’t realize what they were doing to the earth.

This is the picture that shows the buildings on each side of the river polluting the river and air:

The second exhibit that I saw was one about the steam engine, the title of this exhibit is “America Runs on Steam Engine”; this is another intriguing title, it made me want learn more about the steam engine. Something interesting I learned from this exhibit is that the major product that were produced from the steam engine are coal, metal goods and woolen cloth and how these navigation routes helped other countries trade with each other. Another exhibit that I looked at was mainly about slavery, the title of this exhibit is called “Prosperity at the Cost of People”, when I saw this title instantly I thought of slavery because slave owners payed to have a slave. Something that I thought was really interesting how it says that in the past 90 years the amount of slaves has increased drastically and how there was a higher demand of slaves than there was cotton, because I know how important cotton.  The last exhibit that I looked at was all about the spinning machines and how it effected life during the Industrial Revolution, the title of this exhibit it “Just Keep Spinning”, this is based off of Dory from finding Nemo when she says “just keep swimming, which I think is a really good word play and it made me want to read more about the spinning machines. Something interesting that I learned was that children at the age of five could run the wheel to the machine, it was a good job for them because it was constant and it kept the children standing straight up so it won’t affect their growth.

What Makes the Industrial Revolution?

This week we got into groups and each had different ingredients that were a big part of the industrialization. In this blog post I am going to explain two of the ingredients in more depth.

One of the ingredients in the industrial revolution are the people. One of the things that the people did of this era was improve farming. Roy Townsend urged farmers to grow turnips which restored exhausted soil. Jethro Tull also helped with improving farming, he invented a new material device, the seed drill to be able to help the farmers plant seeds more quickly. The agriculture revolution decrease the risk of famines, because they were well fed women were healthier and that led to healthier and stronger babies which also decreased death rates. Rich landowners pushed ahead with enclosure, which is the process of taking over and fencing of land formerly shared by peasant farmers. The landowners pushed the peasants out which forced them to work in factories.

http://www.3benefitsof.com/3-benefits-of-farming-in-australia/

Another ingredient that was important in the industrial revolution are the resources. Iron as made better by Abraham Darby who was the founding father of iron, he found impurities in the iron from coal, so he found a way to take the impurities out. This was a big part in leading to the railroad industry. Coal was an important source of fuel for the production of iron, it was used to make the steam engine. Cotton was another very important because people can now make better clothing with the mills and the steam engine, this also includes the shuttle which made the making of clothes much faster. People made large business investments off of the industrial revolution.  

http://blog.world-mysteries.com/modern-world/without-knowledge-of-the-past-there-is-no-future/

Search Key Terms Not Questions

Last week in class we learned about a Google a Day and how to search more effectively by typing in key terms instead of a whole question. This blog post is going to explain what a Google a Day is and how to determine if a site is reliable or not.

A Google a Day is a game from google where google asks you questions that you have to search for. Google limits what you can search so you have to search for specific keywords to find the answer. A Google a Day was very frustrating because you would find a word that seems like it would be the right answer to the question but it would be wrong. Also since you were limited to what you could search it was hard to find the key words in the question and it won’t give you the full page from the particular website you were trying to look for the answer on. I learned how to search for the answers to questions in a more efficient way.

Here is a link to a Google a Day: http://www.agoogleaday.com/#game=started

Accuracy means that the document is correct, Authenticity means that it is real and genuine, and Reliability means that the document is is trustworthy and there is some way to prove that it is real. In class we looked at a website site called the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. This website is all about saving the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus and many different facts about this animal. This website could not be used in school as a source because it is not accurate, there is no such thing as a Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. Also it is not reliable because the university that is supposedly sponsoring this website doesn’t even exist.

http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/

Here is a link to the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus website: http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/

It's My Choice to do Good in School

Hi! My name is Angela and this is my first blog post of the year.  I am a sophmore at Reading Memorial High School. The purpose of this blog is to show what is going on in Honors History 10 and what we are learning.

http://www.clipartbest.com/teacher-and-student-clip-art

I think what makes a great teacher is that they have to be kind and be understanding helping with subjects that may be hard for them. They should make sure that everyone understands what we are leaning and make room for questions. When I think back to my favorite teachers some of the qualities that really stuck out to me is that they were kind, but they were also funny. Another quality that sticks out is that they were easy to talk to, I can just rant on about pointless things and they would actually listen.

I agree with John Green about it being my duty to use my education to do great things. Its my choice if I want to do good in school go to college to actually do something that I like; I would not want to be spending everyday of my life doing a job that I do not like. One of my academic goals is to get a B+ or B in Chemistry. I am not going to procrastinate on my studying and not just study the night before and maybe even make flashcards so that I will be able to test myself.

John Green Video