- Key People:
- Robert Owen
- Francis Cabot Lowell
- Related Topics:
- industrialization
factory system
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What is the factory system?
The factory system, which began in the 18th century, is a method of manufacturing based on concentrating industry into specialized, often large, establishments. It replaced the domestic system, where individual workers used hand tools at home. The use of water and steam power to mechanize processes marked its beginning.
The factory system led to mass production using interchangeable parts and less-skilled workers. It also caused significant social changes, as workers moved to cities and worked long hours in poor conditions. Later advances included scientific management and assembly lines. Automation further transformed factories, and production became more globalized.
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How is the factory system different from making goods by hand at home?
The factory system, emerging during the Industrial Revolution, centralized industry into specialized establishments, contrasting sharply with the domestic system where individuals crafted goods at home using hand tools.
In the factory system, tasks were organized to harness power-driven machinery for large-scale production. This led to significant social changes, as workers transitioned from independent artisans owning their tools and setting their hours to employees subject to employer-owned tools, materials, and fixed working conditions. The concentration of labor in urban factories replaced rural-based work, enabled by the need to locate near waterpower, roads, or railways.
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Why did the factory system become important during the Industrial Revolution?
The factory system became important during the Industrial Revolution because it concentrated industry into specialized establishments, replacing the domestic system where workers used hand tools at home. The introduction of waterpower and the steam engine mechanized processes, enhancing the system further with interchangeable parts for mass production.
This system utilized power-driven machinery to produce goods on a large scale, which had social consequences. Workers transitioned from independent craftsmen to employees working under set hours and conditions. Factories centralized workers in urban areas near power and transportation, leading to crowded conditions and the employment of women and children in unskilled jobs.
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How did the use of machines change the way factories worked?
The introduction of machines in the 18th century led to the factory system, which centralized industry into specialized establishments. Initially, individual workers fabricated goods at home. However, the use of machinery, such as the steam engine, increased production speed and volume.
With the rise of the factory system, employers owned the tools and set working conditions, a change from the independent craftsman model. Factories also changed the location of work, concentrating workers in urban areas near sources of power and transportation. Additionally, the division of labor increased, with each worker assigned to a specific task.
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What kinds of jobs did people do inside factories?
Within the factory system, jobs were divided to increase production. Some common roles included machine operators who managed power-driven equipment, and unskilled workers who handled repetitive assembly tasks.
The division of labor also created supervisory positions and management roles to oversee workers. Women and children often found employment in factories, especially in the textile industry, due to their manual dexterity. However, they faced harsh conditions, including long hours and low pay.
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How did the factory system affect people's lives and communities?
The factory system, which emerged during the Industrial Revolution, greatly impacted people's lives and communities. It replaced the domestic system, concentrating workers in urban areas near factories. This shift led to substandard housing and poor sanitation for many.
The system changed work conditions, with employers setting hours and conditions, unlike the independent craftsmen of the past. Unskilled jobs emerged, often filled by women and children, driving wages down. Harsh factory conditions spurred the rise of trade unions in the late 19th century, as workers sought better conditions through collective action.
The rise of factories and industry fundamentally altered family life, as well. Families, once the basic unit of production, saw their economic functions diminished, becoming more reliant on external wages and jobs. Over time, individualization grew, and the family's role shrank to child-rearing, competing with schools and other agencies.
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factory system, system of manufacturing that began in the 18th century and is based on the concentration of industry into specialized—and often large—establishments. The system arose in the course of the Industrial Revolution.
The factory system replaced the domestic system, in which individual workers used hand tools or simple machinery to fabricate goods in their own homes or in workshops attached to their homes. The use of waterpower and then the steam engine to mechanize processes such as cloth weaving in England in the second half of the 18th century marked the beginning of the factory system. This system was enhanced at the end of the 18th century by the introduction of interchangeable parts in the manufacture of muskets and, subsequently, other types of goods. Prior to this, each part of a musket (or anything else assembled from multiple components) had been individually shaped by a workman to fit with the other parts. In the new system, the musket parts were machined to such precise specifications that a part of any musket could be replaced by the same part from any other musket of the same design. This advance signaled the onset of mass production, in which standardized parts could be assembled by relatively unskilled workmen into complete finished products.
The resulting system, in which work was organized to utilize power-driven machinery and produce goods on a large scale, had important social consequences: formerly, workers had been independent craftsmen who owned their own tools and designated their own working hours, but in the factory system, the employer owned the tools and raw materials and set the hours and other conditions under which the workers laboured. The location of work also changed. Whereas many workers had inhabited rural areas under the domestic system, the factory system concentrated workers in cities and towns, because the new factories had to be located near waterpower and transportation (alongside waterways, roads, or railways). The movement toward industrialization often led to crowded substandard housing and poor sanitary conditions for the workers. Moreover, many of the new unskilled jobs could be performed equally well by women, men, or children, thus tending to drive down factory wages to subsistence levels. Factories tended to be poorly lit, cluttered, and unsafe places where workers put in long hours for low pay. These harsh conditions gave rise in the second half of the 19th century to the trade-union movement, in which workers organized in an attempt to improve their lot through collective action. (See organized labour.)
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Two major advances in the factory system occurred in the early 20th century with the introduction of management science and the assembly line. Scientific management, such as time-and-motion studies, helped rationalize production processes by reducing or eliminating unnecessary and repetitious tasks performed by individual workers. The old system in which workers carried their parts to a stationary assembly point was replaced by the assembly line, in which the product being assembled would pass on a mechanized conveyor from one stationary worker to the next until it was completely assembled.
By the second half of the 20th century, enormous increases in worker productivity—fostered by mechanization and the factory system—had yielded unprecedentedly high standards of living in industrialized nations. Ideally, the modern factory was a well-lit, well-ventilated building that was designed to ensure safe and healthy working conditions mandated by government regulations. The main advance in the factory system in the latter part of the century was that of automation, in which machines were integrated into systems governed by automatic controls, thereby eliminating the need for manual labour while attaining greater consistency and quality in the finished product. Factory production became increasingly globalized, with parts for products originating in different countries and being shipped to their point of assembly. As labour costs in the developed countries continued to rise, many companies in labour-intensive industries relocated their factories to developing nations, where both overhead and labour were cheaper.