The Sadler Report: The Industrial Revolution

The industrial revolution, an era between 1790 and 1850, was the most impactful time period in history; this era is responsible for the majority of material goods and ideas that we encounter in our modern day lives. Due to the surplus of money, raw materials and people, Europe, or more specifically Britain, enforced drastic changes to create a faster and more efficient everyday life. Although the Industrial Revolution can be perceived as a time of human creativity and technological progress, “The Sadler Report” and a work by Engels illuminate how the industrial Revolution was a time of human greed and exploitation. Human greed and exploitation were both addressed in “The Sadler Report”, an investigation done by Michael Sadler, a chairman of Parliament. Through the format of a question and answer, …show more content…
Required to work at age six, most workers were in the factories “From 5 in the morning till 9 at night” (Sadler) everyday “for about a half a year” (Sadler). These long hours and low wages are due to the greedy aristocrats who desire efficiency over all. In addition to long hours, workers were faced with constant abuse from nefarious factory owners. When asked about abuse in the workplace, the factory worker stated that his boss would “take a strap, and a whistle in his mouth, and sometimes he has a chain and chained them, and strapped them all down the room” (Sadler). This abuse of children was also highly prevalent in mothers who have attested to her “breasts have given [her] the most frightful pain, and [she had] been dripping wet with milk” (Engles). The fact that new mothers were forced to work so harshly, leaving their children to “grow up like wild weeds” (Engles) show the exploitation of the revolution. In the aristocrat’s eyes, the nation was progressing faster than ever, but to the common working family was a death sentence that mimicked to them