Let us now turn to an examination of the conditions in the new factories.

The complaints of many social reformers are these:

• Factory wages were too low.
• Factory work hours were too long.
• Factories were "sweat shops" with deplorable working conditions.
• Factory machinery was dangerous, resulting in many accidents.
• Profits to the factory owners and managers was too high.
• Businessmen and industrialists were indifferent to the problems of -their workers.
• Factory managers hired children and forced them to compete with adults.
• Factory owners and manager neglected the educational needs of the workers and children.
• Health was ruined by facotry work, with women deformed to such a degree that they could no longer bear children.
• Factory workers were reduced to poverty because of the low wages.
• Factory owners and managers whipped and cruelly treated their child workers, even chaining them to the workbenches.

We hear many of these same complaints still today.

Let us examine each of these charges in turn.

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