In the eighteen hundreds, America started to industrialize itself, by building more and more factories. Work was hard and dangerous. Now in 2008, many immigrants are doing jobs that require the same amount of work, and possibly the same amount of danger? Is this fair? You decide.
When the amount of factories started to grow, so did the number of job possibilities. Immigrants like the Irish and the Italian coming over to America for better job opportunities saw these openings and took them without any hesitation. As did women, whose only job before this time was to stay at home and take care of their house and children. When the time finally came for immigrants and women to work, their jobs were exceptionally difficult. They worked long, almost twelve-hour days, with little breaks. They were paid very little, and were put in unsafe situations that at any point could take their lives. Immigrants worked in almost any kind of work area, which could include moving, lifting, or working heavy and unstable machinery, (a death sentence for their fingers and/or hands, arms, etc.). Women were most popularly place in textile factories, where they spun and made fabric. This was dangerous because their fingers could be in danger, and there were many harmful particles of fabric floating around in the air that they could inhale at any moment. Taking one day off at work meant being fired, and the low pay put people in to a depression.
At one point, people were making so little money, that they had their children start working. At the age of twelve or thirteen, children would drop out of school and face the same job hardships their parents did, just to put bread on the table. Some children lost lives because of the extreme dangers they were put in. Limbs were lost, and immune systems were shattered. Some children were actually hired to go inside of the machinery if it stopped working, to see what the problem was. Sometimes, the machinery would start back up with the children inside (this is the part where you thank God you were born in the twenty-first century!). The life of a factory worker was hard, and did not always support the employee.
Now in 2008, illegal immigrants from all around the world are doing these same dangerous jobs for low wages. Hard labor is one of the main things these people do for the smallest bit of money. Intricate construction jobs put these aliens in danger, especially because they have no benefits or opportunities to insurance. If one of them gets hurt, they cannot afford to go to a hospital, and do not do so anyway in fear of being caught. They cannot argue with their pay either, because getting the police involved would mean being deported. Some people believe that this is extremely unfair, and that immigrants should be treated better. It is believed that this sort of discrimination is the main reason for all the racism in America. Is this true? Or, did they bring this upon themselves for coming to the United States illegally? It is clearly against the law, but should these illegal immigrants be handed better jobs because of the fact that discrimination is also wrong? Or should we treat them with a more iron fist, and not employ them at all, so that they go back to where they come from? What do you think?
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12 comments:
This was a very good blog. I learned that many people died in the cotton mills, since they breathed in cotton dust. The reason why the dust killed the people is the cotton dust clogged your organs. This reality should make some people to be grateful, that there are working in good environmental conditions. And I also like how you organized your information. Great Job.
Your blog was really good. I like how you talked about immigration. I think immigration is a very interesting topic. Thats what i wrote one of my holiday songs on. Any way back to your blog. I like how you talked about the dust and how it clogged peoples organs. Im glad you talked about immigration because i dont think any body did and if they did it probably isnt as good as yours...lol
Great blog! Many people at the time did have extremely difficult jobs. Not only were they long, but extremely dangerous like you said. I don’t even think many safety rules or equipment was even invented at the time, making workers especially vulnerable. Also with working these jobs, many diseases would affect the workers. Because of low ventilation, one sick person could make everyone in the building sick. Times were extremely hard back then.
Nice job! I really liked your blog...it was really descriptive and 'down-to-the-earth'. You included small details with the situations of immigration. But you could still add some real-life examples to help the audience better understand your point. I agree with the hazard of dust within working environment, in which the dusts can cause lung diseases after prolonged periods of inhalation of the substance. Nice job! Keep it up!
Nice blog. It is very descriptive and organized. I like how you voice your opinion on the issue of illegal immigration in our country. You obiviously believe that no matter where the person comes from and how he/she enters the country, that person deserves to be treated fairly like any other Americans. I do believe that but look at the other side, if we give them the same rights then they will think that they can do anything they want in America and more illegal immigrants will continue to enter the country. I will say that those illegal immigrants sort of deserve those low wages jobs because they choose to enter the country without getting a citizenship.
Thank you for blogging! This was really cool. You described the past and present concisely, but with enough detail that it didn't sound stilted. The topic was cool too. All around, it was a very good post.
go amanda you finally bloged. i'm proud of you. but your blog was wonderful to read. i agree with you when you say that work was hard and dangerous. i also like how you talked about immigration. your topic was interesting to talk about. but i'm glad i wasn't born back then beacause working was very hard rather than today.
I still don't understand why factory bosses wouldn't be concerned with their workers' health and safety. Sure, someone might be easy to replace, but they're all still human. I like how you're asking the audience questions. In my opinion, the immigrants should be getting better working conditions, but mostly that. If they came over here illegally and get killed for it for simply working, wouldn't that look bad for the US?
Hey, nice blog. The working conditions at the turn-of-the-century were definitely unbearable. It's pretty unbelievable how children were hired to go inside of machines and risk their own lives in the process. Being fired for missing one day of work is ridiculous. There would be no teachers at Christiana if that policy still existed today lol. Due to such dangerous working conditions, I think immigrants today should receive higher wages.
I had no idea that you could die from inhaling cotton dust, i did not know that there was such thing as cotton dust. I learned a few new things reading your blog, i liked that it was detailed.
Hi waggles!!
I really liked your blog. if i missed this whole unit I would be caught up fromyour blog! I really liked how you included how popular child labor was. I think that you should of put more about how even younger children like six year olds had to work sometimes too. Like they collected buttons or little things like that.
Didn't mean to be negative. But i didn't know what else to say!
This is a very good blog. I didnt know that children our ages worked so hard and had to go to school and everything. i guess we should appericate what we had here that they couldnt have
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