AP European History Practice Test 2, Section I, Part A (^) ‹ 253
Questions 25–27 refer to the passage below.
Many things combine to make the hand spinning of wool, the most desirable work for the cottager’s wife and chil-
dren. A wooden wheel costing 2 s[hillings] for each person, with one reel costing 3 s[hillings] set up the family. The
wool-man either supplies them with wool by the pound or more at a time, as he can depend on their care, or they
take it on his account from the chandler’s shop, where they buy their food and raiment. No stock is required, and
when they carry back their pound of wool spun, they have no further concern in it. Children from five years old
can run at the wheel, it is a very wholesome employment for them, keeps them in constant exercise, and upright;
persons can work at it till a very advanced age.
But from the establishment of the [mechanical] spinning machines in many counties where I was last summer, no
hand work could be had, the consequence of which is the whole maintenance of the family devolves on the father,
and instead of six or seven shillings a week, which a wife and four children could add by their wheels, his weekly
pay is all they have to depend upon....
I then walked to the Machines, and with some difficulty gained admittance: there I saw both the Combing
Machine and Spinning Jenny. The Combing Machine was put in motion by a Wheel turned by four men, but
which I am sure could be turned either by water or steam. The frames were supplied by a child with Wool, and as
the wheel turned, flakes of ready combed Wool dropped off a cylinder into a trough, these were taken up by a girl
of about fourteen years old, who placed them on the Spinning Jenny, which has a number of horizontal beams of
wood, on each of which may be fifty bobbins. One such girl sets these bobbins all in motion by turning a wheel
at the end of the beam, a wire then catches up a flake of Wool, spins it, and gathers it upon each bobbin. The girl
again turns the wheel, and another fifty flakes are taken up and Spun. This is done every minute without intermis-
sion, so that probably one girl turning that wheel, may do the work of One Hundred Hand Wheels at the least.
About twenty of these sets of bobbins, were I judge at work in one room. Most of these Manufactories are many
stories high, and the rooms much larger than this I was in. Struck with the impropriety of even so many as the
twenty girls I saw, without any woman presiding over them, I enquired of the Master if he was married, why his
Wife was not present? He said he was not a married man, and that many parents did object to send their girls, but
that the poverty of others, and not having any work to set them to, left him not at any loss for hands. I must do
all the parties the justice to say, that these girls appeared neat and orderly: yet at best, I cannot but fear the taking
such young persons from the eyes of their parents, and thus herding them together with only men and boys, must
bring up a dissolute race of poor.
Observations... on the Loss of Woollen Spinning, c. 1794
- What changes are described in the passage?
A. The shift from cottage industry organization
to the mill system
B. The shift from agricultural work to industrial
manufacturing
C. The shift from single country markets to
international trade
D. The shift from individual labor to labor
organized into trade unions - What does this passage say about spinning wool?
A. The work took very little time.
B. A family could make enough spinning to
support the entire household.
C. The initial investment in equipment was
quickly recouped.
D. The work was done only by girls.
27. What was one of the moral objections to mill
work in the wool spinning industry?
A. That religious instruction was not provided
to the young workers in the mills
B. That it promoted petty theft by desperate
workers
C. That it broke down traditional gender roles
by employing women and girls in a trade
D. That large numbers of young girls worked
for unmarried men without parental supervi-
sion
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