Regulation and Reform

LIFE AND LABOR IN THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD HIST 1301 | History Regulation and Reform For spectators of the period, the industrial revolution must have presented daunting obstacles that looked insurmountable. Governments did, however, make an effort to address some of the most significant issues. Their intentions differed. Since several legislators hailed from the ranks of social activists and reformers, many authorities were receptive to their concerns. They sincerely wanted to make life better for working class people and those living in cities. However, politicians frequently behaved in a way that appeased the middle class and rich, who were alarmed by filthy air, foul-smelling streets, and contagious diseases that domestic helpers may carry into their houses. American campaigner Florence Kelley opposed child labour because she believed it robbed children of their childhood independence and because she was afraid the goods produced by kids in tenement flats would be contaminated and spread to her own family. Numerous national and municipal leaders also came to the realisation that safeguarding the welfare and health of workers strengthened the country. Ill employees were not productive, and tourists steered clear of places experiencing pandemics. Many laws were enacted to fight sickness and clean up cities. Britain made progress in 1848 when it passed the Public Health Act, which established the National Board of Health to control things like sewage disposal. The British Alkali Act of 1863 attempted to lower hydrogen chloride emissions by allowing inspectors to recommend modifications to business owners without having the authority to enforce compliance. A number of American cities, including Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and Chicago, enacted laws restricting smoke emissions in the 1880s. These laws had very little success. Companies disregarded them, and most localities did not enforce them. During the Second Industrial Revolution, governments also started to worry about housing. Risks like dwellings without windows or ventilation, where infectious illnesses quickly spread, were frequently prohibited by regulations. Certain local governments constructed houses for the impoverished or demolished slums and moved labourers to other areas of the city. Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann reconstructed Paris between 1853 and 1870; as part of this endeavour, worker's homes in the city centre were demolished. Between 1889 and 1918, Naples, Italy, was rebuilt in an effort to stop the spread of cholera. Japanese authorities in Tokyo and Osaka likewise made an effort to eradicate slums and the impoverished from areas where the middle class lived in the 1880s and 1890s. However, these were not always effective, and even the most elite neighbourhoods frequently had impoverished neighbourhoods next to them. One Japanese newspaper claimed in 1906 that the emperor's palace was impacted by the flooding of the impoverished neighbourhood next to it. Germany's Health Insurance Law, enacted in 1883, mandated that companies offer health insurance to their staff members, supplementing company payments with funds deducted from employees' wages. The German government began providing insurance to the aged and disabled in 1889. France began offering insurance for workers' compensation in 1898. Approximately thirty percent of British workers had access to health care because to the National Insurance Act of 1911. Russia enacted a similar statute in 1912. Numerous laws were also motivated by concerns about worker safety in the industrial sector, particularly with regard to women and children. Laws from the past only applied to certain industries, such as mining and textiles. The categories of enterprises covered by the earlier legislation were broadened by Factory Acts, which were passed in Britain between the 1860s and the 1880s. Boys had to be twelve years old to work in mines according to the Coal Mines Regulation Act of 1860, while eleven years old was the minimum age required to work in factories in Britain in 1891. Laws restricting women's work hours in physically demanding sectors, such as washing, have been approved by several US states. However, employers contested these measures, and courts frequently invalidated protective legislation in favour of a laissez-faire approach. It was believed that restricting adults' working hours would burden companies and rob them of their right to contract freedom. The working class also frequently objected to several attempts to restrict hours or completely prohibit women and children from working in specific professions. People who were in a difficult situation sometimes forced to accept the few jobs they could find since those who were paid by the hour or the piece made more money the longer they worked. Reformers regarded green spaces as a way to alleviate the turmoil and filth of the city, which is why they set out to create urban parks. Like true Romantics, the middle and upper classes of the nineteenth century trusted in the healing power of nature. In addition to being healthy for city people' lungs, greenery and flowers were considered to be morally uplifting sights. Their assertions influenced politicians. Central Park, New York City, 1858. Japan's government ruled in 1873 that parks were to be constructed in cities. In 1881, German Emperor Wilhelm I gave up ownership of the royal hunting park, Tiergarten, and annexed it to Berlin. In parks like Central Park, picnics, flower-picking, and lawn sports were sometimes forbidden because of middleclass concerns that working-class people might act badly. Sometimes laws and regulations didn't produce the changes that a lot of social activists believed were needed. Reform groups emerged to put pressure on governments to enact more extensive reforms as well as to alter personal habits that the middle class deemed unhealthy or immoral, including drinking or having extramarital sex. They were successful at times. For instance, prostitution was outlawed in several American cities. Prostitution was legal in other nations, including France, where new legislation was passed in an effort to control the practice and stop the spread of genital mutilation. Alcohol abuse was another issue that reform initiatives were mostly used to combat. The middle class attributed drinking to a wide range of issues, such as unemployment, marital abuse, poverty, street crime, and worker absenteeism. Temperance, which discouraged the use of hard liquor and promoted the moderate use of other alcoholic drinks, and prohibition, which sought to outlaw the production and use of all alcoholic beverages, were the two main strategies used to address issues. In nations like the United States, England, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland with sizable Protestant populations, the temperance and prohibition campaigns achieved the most progress. The United Kingdom Alliance, also known as the United Kingdom Alliance for the Total and Immediate Suppression of the Liquor Traffic by the Will of the People, aimed to completely outlaw the sale of alcoholic beverages. Barrooms were physically destroyed as part of the Anti-Saloon League's campaign to shut down establishments that provided alcohol in the US. Women were integral to many of these reform groups; at the time, this kind of engagement was seen as suitable for middle-class or rich women and intimately tied to their interests. Husbands who went to see prostitutes could return home sick. Families might be financially destroyed by inebriated males, and spouses and dads who drink alcohol can harm their spouses and kids physically. It was common to compare cleaning up the city to cleaning up the house. The majority of women involved in reform movements came to the realisation that if they were allowed to vote, hold public office, and have property rights, they would be more successful. Their capacity to advance society would also be strengthened by having access to a university education and the workforce. As a result, many participated actively in campaigns for women's rights. Reformers frequently believed that issues like intoxication and poverty were caused by a lack of moral integrity and self-control. They held that the greatest way to assist the impoverished was to promote morality. The Scottish writer Samuel Smiles, for example, felt morality was the key to success. Taking up that mindset, religious groups and benevolent societies frequently founded missions in underprivileged areas in an effort to persuade the working class to alter their behaviour. Reformers of the nineteenth century also demanded that the impoverished not grow reliant on charity. Octavia Hill, a British housing reformer, supported this viewpoint. She collaborated with art critic John Ruskin to provide the impoverished access to beautiful homes, but the apartments weren't free and tenants who didn't make their rent payments on time ran the possibility of being sent out. In addition, Hill fired renters who neglected to enrol their kids in school or who let their houses to fill up too quickly. Some held the view that the impoverished could not be saved and that altering their characteristics—many of which were regarded as inherited—was impossible. Hence, efforts to promote morality and generosity were viewed as futile. The pseudoscientific theory of social Darwinism, which held that certain individuals were more suited for survival than others, was promoted by British sociologist Herbert Spencer. Spencer thought that helping the impoverished was pointless since they would eventually become extinct. Because they lacked the qualities required to succeed, he saw them as having "lost" the competition of life. He was against giving the impoverished money aid since he did not think they should be encouraged to survive. Trade and labour unions were established as a result of a certain kind of reform movement to represent employees against management. Workers organised within a specific industry or craft form trade unions. Workers of all stripes, skilled and unskilled, banded together in labour unions to advance and protect their interests. Trade unions led the way in bringing about change in Britain. The primary goal of the formation of the Trades Union Congress in 1866 was to defend the concerns of skilled workers. It was a federation of trade unions from Wales and England. The British government authorised its creation in 1871, and in 1875, Parliament passed legislation allowing workers to go on strike. As a result, by the mid1870s, the number of members in trade unions had grown from around 100,000 to over one million. The earliest workers to form unions were those employed in textile factories, iron and steel industries, and coal mines. Unions started to organise unskilled labourers in force in the 1880s and 1890s. By the start of the twentieth century, two million individuals had become members of British trade unions. The main goals of the workers' requests were better pay, more hours, and better working conditions. Many unions wanted to establish the eight-hour workday. They struck when these objectives were not achieved. British match factory workers went on strike in 1881. They want relief from the risks associated with working with white phosphorous and from fourteen-hour workdays. Miners, dockworkers, and railway workers throughout Britain often went on strike between 1910 and 1914, a time known as the Great Unrest. In addition, employees in other industries staged walkouts to put more pressure on the strikers' employers to accede to their demands. Both labour unions and trade unions were present in the US. Samuel Gompers founded the American Federation of Labour (AFL), formerly known as the Federation of Organised Trades and Labour Unions of the United States and Canada, in 1886. It was made up of numerous distinct unions, much like the British Trades Union Congress, although at first, only skilled White male workers were allowed to join. Gompers wanted to avoid strikes, but the AFL was in favour of them. Members would not have been able to employ strikes, even if he had preferred them. To disperse striking workers, employers frequently dispatched the military, private investigators, or the police; union leaders risked jail time. More than 100,000 American railway workers refused to work on any train that included cars made by Pullman's firm when the company's employees went on strike in 1894. The U.S. mail service came to a complete stop along with rail travel. As African American males who had been hired by railroad owners to replace the striking workers were attacked, buildings were set on fire, and violence broke out between the striking workers and their supporters. The workers were attacked by the U.S. Army in an attempt to put a stop to the strike. The Pullman strike was not the first one to conclude this way.