The Factory System Of The Early Nineteenth Century

The factory system is an approach to manufacturing that was introduced on the onset of the industrial revolution. The system is greatly credited for its unmatched role in the massive industrial revolution in America and European countries in the 19th century (Digital history, 1820-1860:4). In the factory systems, machine and other technological innovations and invention were undertaken to replace the purely manual domestic system. Under the system, each factory employee played a distinct role in the unionized production process; a factor that fostered factory efficiency to a very great extent (Geraghty, 2007:1329)

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According to William (2007:3), the factory system ensured that the entire manufacturing process was carried out in one place. He asserts that this move increased the efficacy of factory management and control and significantly reduced the cost of production. The system also ensured that the factory human resources were optimally utilized since the workers were engaged for the longest working hours possible while their wages were held constant. The introduction of the machines into the factories saw workers uniting to perform the factory tasks with the help of the machines; a move that largely increased both productivity and production efficiency. The owner’s point of view was that the factory system was the best since it favored their capitalistic ideology. In addition, the system was faulted for incorporation of child labor as the owners attempted to reduce cost.

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From the employees perspective however, the system was totally unfair because irrespective of the employees working for very long hours no extra wages were paid to them. Geraghty (2007:1331) felt that the factory system while benefiting the factory owners in terms of increased efficiency in managements, production as well as cost economies, it was dehumanizing to the workers due to the long working hours, poor working condition, low levels of remuneration and an imminent cause of unemployment, since the machines could easily replace many workers.

Workers were not in any way favored by the factory system, consequently, they united to fight for their rights, its abolishment and betterment of the working condition, forming the genesis of workers’ unions and labor movements in the late 19th century (Geraghty (2007:1330). Anti- factory system campaigns and uprisings resulted in the unionization of the employee and the emergence of labor movements aimed at fighting for factories’ workers rights as early as 1876.

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