US and Great Britain Comparison

The industrial revolution was a powerful force in both Great Britain and the United States. However, Industrialists were more likely to succeed in Great Britain for some select reasons. For one, there was a labor shortage that occurred in the United States, who were a critical part of the industrial machine. One quote that signifies this would be in the comparative essay that read "Another challenge in the United States was a relative shortage of labor. Much more than in continental Europe or in Britain, labor was in chronically short supply in the United States." (P.3). With little labor to be found, resources would have to spent by the company to try and recruit workers to work in the factories. In Great Britain, however, labor was plentiful, as well as having plentiful resources and a good transportation system. Finally, Industrialists had it better in Great Britain because the accepted that people could move up on the social ladder through hard work and having a gift at whatever craft they may have chosen. This kept the economy booming and allowed industrialists to let their investments grow and work for them. All these factors combined to made Great Britain a veritable cornucopia of opportunities for industrialists.

Although both the US and Great Britain each had their fair share of undesirable traits that went along with working in the factories of that time, the US had slightly better working conditions and offered better benefits to the workers. Harriet Robinson also explains in her autobiography how the wages that some of the mill girls earned during this period in history were revolutionary for womens labor at the time. "We can hardly realize what a change the cotton factory made in the status of the working women. Hitherto woman had always been a money saving rather than a money earning, member of the community." (paragraph 7). Also, although child labor was common in both parts of the world, the work was not as demanding in the US as it was in Great Britain. Another quote from Harriet's Autobiography that signifies this would be "These mites worked about fifteen minutes every hour and the rest of the time was their own. When the overseer was kind they were allowed to read, knit, or go outside the mill­yard to play." (paragraph 4). Finally, mill workers in the US were able to demand higher wages because of the labor shortage at the time. These factors combined to create a more opportune working environment in the US than in Great Britain.

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