Prude: Views on Industrialization
Randy Bright
Kaplan
SS 340-03
Jennifer Harrison
12/24/2007
Prude: Views on Industrialization
What picture comes to one’s mind when they hear the term factory and how might that change if we altered that term to ask; what of a factory in the early American industrialization period? What impact might our ideas and thoughts have in regards to our modern day conceptualizations of industry or industrialization and how might that impact our views of historic industrialization? In order to answer that question we must first examine our views and thoughts today and then compare that to what the actual definition of a factory was in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries during the birth of capitalism and industry. We must also examine whether the progress of factories was a representation of progress and was this progress positive or negative in its impact and entirety.
Today, factories are large buildings with very advanced technologies and machines which can mass produce a product or products in a very cost and time efficient manner. Some of these factories consist of several buildings, warehouses, and even administrative buildings and can be placed on large parcels of land and in some cases may even have companion sites in other states, regions, or countries. Modern factories today use computers and robotics, as well as vast systems of machinery and technology to produce and move products with less and less intervention by people. The bulk of today’s factory workers who work on assembly lines are not highly skilled or educated, while those who are needed to repair or develop the new technologies used posses both skills and education. When I think about my views ...