Develop an Argument That Analyzes the Changes in Social Structure $\bullet$

question 34

Essay

Develop an argument that analyzes the changes in social structure and standards of living caused by industrialization in the period from 1750 to c. 1900.
In your response you should do the following:
$\bullet$ Respond to the prompt with a historically defensible thesis or claim that establishes a line of reasoning.
$\bullet$ Describe a broader historical context relevant to the prompt.
$\bullet$ Support an argument in response to the prompt using at least six documents.
$\bullet$ Use at least one additional piece of specific historical evidence (beyond that found in the documents) relevant to an argument about the prompt.
$\bullet$ For at least three documents, explain how or why the document's point of view, purpose, historical situation, and/or audience is relevant to an argument.
$\bullet$ Use evidence to corroborate, qualify, or modify an argument that addresses the prompt.
Document 1
Leeds, Yorkshire, Cloth Workers Petition addressed "to the Merchants, Clothiers, and all such as wish well to the Staple Manufactory of the Nation," 1786
"[Upon] a moderate computation twelve men are thrown out of employ for every single machine used in scribbling*. . . full four thousand men are left to shift for a living how they can, and must of course fall to the Parish, if not timely relieved. . . . How are those men, thus thrown out of employ to provide for their families;-and what are they to put their children apprentice to, that the rising generation may have something to keep them at work . . . Some say, Begin and learn some other business.-Suppose we do; who will maintain our families whilst we undertake the arduous task; and when we have learned it, how do we know we shall be any better for all our pains; for by the time we have served our second apprenticeship, another machine may arise. . . ."
*carding wool to prepare it for spinning and weaving
Document 2
Michael Faraday, Letter to the editor of the London Times
"Observations on the Filth of the Thames," 1855
"The smell was very bad, and common to the whole of the water; it was the same as that which now comes up from the gully-holes in the streets; the whole river was for the time a real sewer. . . . [There's] nothing figurative in the words I have employed, or any approach to exaggeration; they are the simple truth . . . surely the river which flows for so many miles through London ought not to be allowed to become a fermenting sewer. . . . If we neglect this subject, we cannot expect to do so with impunity, nor ought we to be surprised if, ere many years are over, a hot season give us sad proof of the folly of our carelessness."
Document 3
Japanese Workers Song, late nineteenth century
"Song of the Living Corpses"
"My family was poor,
At the tender age of twelve
I was sold to a factory. . . .
"I was carried away by sweet-sounding words.
My money was stolen and thrown away.
Unaware of the hardship of the future,
I was duckweed in the wind.
"Excited I arrived at the gate, where I bowed to the doorman,
I was taken immediately to the dormitory,
Where I bowed to the room supervisor.
I was taken immediately to the infirmary,
Where I risked my life having a medical examination.
I was taken immediately to the cafeteria,
Where I asked what was for dinner.
I was told it was low-grade rice mixed with sand. . . .
"We friends are wretched,
Separated from our homes in a strange place,
Put in a miserable dormitory
Waken up at four-thirty in the morning,
Eating when five o'clock sounds,
Dressing at the third bell,
Glared at by the manager and section head,
Used by the inspector.
How wretched we are!"
Document 4
Family eating dinner by oil lamp 1886

Document 5
Bal Gangdadhar Tilak, Address to the Indian National Congress, 1907
"We have perceived one fact, that the whole of this administration, which is carried on by a handful of Englishmen, is carried on with our assistance. We are all in subordinate service. This whole government is carried on with our assistance and they try to keep us in ignorance of our power of cooperation between ourselves by which that which is in our own hands at present can be claimed by us and administered by us. The point is to have the entire control in our hands. I want to have the key of my house, and not merely one stranger turned out of it. Self-government is our goal; we want a control over our administrative machinery. We don't want to become clerks and remain [clerks]. At present, we are clerks and willing instruments of our own oppression in the hands of an alien government, and that government is ruling over us not by its innate strength but by keeping us in ignorance and blindness to the perception of this fact."
Document 6
Young child labor workers in a glass factory in Indiana at midnight, 1908

Document 7
George Bellows, "Cliff Dwellers," New York, Lower East Side, 1913

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Definitions:

Atoms

The simplest units of all matter.

Element

A pure chemical substance consisting of one type of atom, distinguished by its atomic number.

Cell Membrane

The semi-permeable membrane surrounding the cytoplasm of a cell, responsible for controlling the movement of substances in and out of the cell.

Body Tracts

Pathways or channels in the body through which biological substances flow, such as the gastrointestinal tract or neural tracts.