430 Chapter 22straits that they faced were “but temporary” and they
must be balanced against “the greater good which
may be expected from the improvement.” Early
champions of industry went further in their defense
of the factory system. Andrew Ure, a Scottish scien-
tist angered at the criticism of industrialization, wrote
a thoroughly optimistic book in 1835, entitled The
Philosophy of Manufactures(see document 22.3). To
Ure, the factory system was nothing less than “the
great minister of civilization.” He found workers to
be “willing menials” who were “earning abundant
food, raiment, and domestic accommodation without
perspiring at a single pore.”
Economic historians have shown much data to sup-
port the optimistic view that industrialization improved
life for most people. The most obvious argument is that
of the conquest of the biological old regime and the
significantly increased life expectancy. Newborn infants
in 1700 had an average life expectancy of less than
forty years; by 1824 it had reached fifty years. Wit-DOCUMENT 22.2
Work Rules in a Prussian
Factory, 1844
Good order and harmony must be looked upon as
the fundamentals of success, and therefore the fol-
lowing rules shall be strictly observed...:
(1) The normal working day begins at all sea-
sons at 6 AMprecisely and ends, after the usual
break of half an hour for breakfast, an hour for din-
ner and half an hour for tea, at 7 PM.... Workers
arriving two minutes late shall lose half an hour’s
wages; whoever is more than two minutes late may
not start work until after the next break....
(2) When the bell is rung to denote the end of
the working day, every workman... shall leave his
workshop and the yard, but is not allowed to make
preparations for his departure before the bell rings.
Every breach of this rule shall lead to a fine of five
silver groschen....
(3) No workman... may leave before the end
of the working day without having first received
permission from the overseer....
(4) Repeated irregular arrival at work shall
lead to dismissal....
(6) No worker may leave his place of work
otherwise than for reasons connected with his
work.
(7) All conversation with fellow-workers is
prohibited....
(9) Every worker is responsible for cleaning up
his space in the workshop....
(12) It goes without saying that all overseers
and officials of the firm shall be obeyed without
question and shall be treated with due deference.
Disobedience will be punished by dismissal....
Pollard, Sidney, and Holmes, Colin, eds. Documents of Euro-
pean Economic History,3 vols. New York: St. Martin’s, 1968.DOCUMENT 22.3
Andrew Ure: The Factory
System, 1835
Andrew Ure (1778–1857) was a Scottish chemist and the
author of several reference books about chemistry, mining, and
manufacturing. He wrote The Philosophy of Manufac-
tures (1835) to respond to the criticism of factory conditions.In my recent tour, continued during several
months, through the manufacturing districts, I
have seen tens of thousands of old, young, and
middle-aged of both sexes—many of them too
feeble to get their daily bread by any of the former
modes of industry—earning abundant food, rai-
ment, and domestic accommodation without per-
spiring at a single pore, screened meanwhile from
the summer’s sun and the winter’s frost, in an apart-
ment more airy and salubrious than those of the
metropolis, in which our legislative and fashion-
able aristocracies assemble. In those spacious halls,
the benign power of steam summons around him
his myriads of willing menials, and assigns to each
the regulated task, substituting for painful muscu-
lar effort on their part the energies of his own gi-
gantic arm and demanding in return only
attention and dexterity to correct such little aber-
rations as casually occur in his workmanship....
Such is the factory system, replete with prodigies
in mechanics and political economy, which
promises in its future growth to become the great
minister of civilization.
Ure, Andrew. The Philosophy of Manufactures.London: C.
Knight, 1835.