In a country that values production and is future-oriented, the hectic life of a citizen of the United States is seen as normal and is actually valued by family, employers, friends, and everyday people. However, in other cultures, such as Mediterranean and Arab countries, importance is placed on self-reflection and regulation. Not every waking moment of the day is filled to the brim with work and chores. In fact, life in other cultures is typically oriented around the family; work and monetary success are not indicators of one’s fortune, value, and happiness. During the early days of colonial America, the family was also the center of life, although hard work and grit were still valued. Success equaled survival, and it was necessary for Americans to work for their basic needs. As America progressed and began to industrialize, the components of family life and values changed. While survival still meant hard work, the components of that work were different. Although daily work schedules changed according to the times, with the rise of the middle class through the 19th century, there was a natural increase in leisure time and corresponding activities. In the early half of the 19th century, leisure time remained consistent of that before the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and in the latter half of the 19th century leisure time greatly increased as the Industrial Revolution came to its height.
The Industrial Revolution, which occurred from the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries, was a period amid which dominatingly agrarian, provincial social orders in Europe and America become modernized and moved towards urban lifestyles. Preceding the Industrial Revolution, which started in Britain in the late 1700s, and production of tools, textiles, and necessary household items was regularly done in individuals’ homes, utilizing hand instruments or fundamental machines. Industrialization denoted a move to a fueled economy, predominantly driven by the use of specialized machines, manufacturing plants and large scale production. The iron and material ventures, alongside the advancement of the steam motor, assumed focal jobs in the Industrial Revolution, which likewise observed improved frameworks of transportation, correspondence, and banking. While industrialization achieved an expanded volume and assortment of made merchandise and an improved way of life for a few, it additionally brought about regularly horrid business and living conditions for poor people and common laborers. Prior to the coming of the Industrial Revolution, the vast majority lived in little, provincial networks where their day was developed around cultivating. Life for the normal individual was troublesome, as livelihoods were pitiful, and malnourishment and sickness were normal. Citizens, mainly farmers, manufactured most of their own supplies and food, dress, furnishings, and instruments.
The first phase of the Industrial Revolution is signified as the advancement from an agricultural economy to an industrial economy. This change, or rather phase, of the revolution, took place in the United States between the 1790s and 1830s. The first industrial mill in the United States was opened by Samuel Slater, and according to most, signified the start of the Industrial Revolution in America. Samuel Slater’s mill was similar to those used in Great Britain, just as much of the revolution was modeled from Britain and England. Slater’s technology was considerably more efficient than the old methods in which cotton thread could be spun into yarn. While he introduced a vital new technology to the United States, the economic takeoff of the Industrial Revolution required several other elements before it would transform American life. Another key to the rapidly changing economy of the early Industrial Revolution were new organizational strategies to increase productivity. This had begun with the “outwork system” whereby small parts of a larger production process were carried out in numerous individual homes. This organizational reform was especially important for shoe and boot making. However, the chief organizational breakthrough of the Industrial Revolution was the “factory system”, where work was performed on a large scale in a single centralized location. The rise of wage labor at the heart of the Industrial Revolution also exploited working people in new ways. The first strike among textile workers protesting wage and factory conditions occurred in 1824 and even the model mills of Lowell faced large strikes in the 1830s.
The first phase of the Industrial Revolution changed leisure time and activities in many ways. Since the Industrial Revolution was so new at the end of the 18th century, there were initially no laws to regulate new industries. For example, no laws prevented businesses from hiring seven-year-old children to work full time in coal mines or factories. No laws regulated what factories could do with their biohazard waste. Free-market capitalism meant that the government had no role in regulating the new industries or planning services for new towns. And those who controlled the government liked it that way—only a small minority of people, the wealthiest, could actively participate in politics and economic ventures. So during the first phase of the Industrial Revolution, between 1790 and 1850, American society became an example of what happens in a country when free-market capitalism has no constraints. The working class—who made up 80% of society—had little or no bargaining power with their new employers. Since the population was increasing in Great Britain at the same time that landowners were enclosing common village lands, people from the countryside flocked to the towns and the new factories to get work. This resulted in a very high unemployment rate for workers in the first phases of the Industrial Revolution. As a result, the new factory owners could set the terms of work because there were far more unskilled laborers and those who had few skills and would take any job. Desperate for work, the migrants to the new industrial towns had no bargaining power to demand higher wages, fairer work hours, or better working conditions. Worse still, since only wealthy people in Great Britain were eligible to vote, workers could not use the democratic political system to fight for rights and reforms. In 1799 and 1800, the British Parliament passed the Combination Acts, which made it illegal for workers to unionize, or combine, as a group to ask for better working conditions. For the first generation of workers—from the 1790s to the 1840s—working conditions were very tough, and sometimes tragic. Most laborers worked 10 to 14 hours a day, six days a week, with no paid vacation or holidays. Life in the factory was most challenging for the first generation of industrial workers who still remembered the slower and more flexible pace of country life. Factory employers demanded a complete change of pace and discipline from farm life. Workers could no longer easily communicate with their peers and friends, as they would have done while working in the country. They could not return to the village during harvest time to help their families unless they wanted to lose their jobs. Instead, they were no longer their own bosses; foremen and overseers supervised a new working culture to ensure that workers’ actions were focused and efficient. In the first sixty years or so of the Industrial Revolution, working-class people had little time or opportunity for recreation. Workers spent all the light of day at work and came home with little energy, space, or light to play sports or games. The new industrial pace and factory system were at odds with the old traditional festivals which dotted the village holiday calendar. Plus, local governments actively sought to ban traditional festivals in the cities. In the new working-class neighborhoods, people did not share the same traditional sense of a village community. The first phase of the industrial revolution clearly lacked proper leadership and regulation, which severely limited men and women of all ages, making leisurely activities impossible but for the rich.
The second Industrial Revolution, also known as the American Industrial Revolution, brought about significant change in the lives of the working class. After the 1850s, however, recreation improved along with the rise of an emerging the middle class. Music halls sprouted up in big cities. Sports such as rugby and cricket became popular. Football became a professional sport in 1885. By the end of the 19th century, cities had become the places with opportunities for sport and entertainment that they are today. Soon massive immigration from England, Britain, and other countries took place. This process of urbanization stimulated the booming new industries by concentrating on workers and factories together. New industrial cities became sources of wealth for the nation. Aristocrats born into their lives of wealth and privilege, and low-income commoners born in the working classes. n this new middle class, families became a sanctuary from stressful industrial life. The home remained separate from work and took on the role of emotional support, where women of the house created a moral and spiritual safe harbor away from the rough-and-tumble industrial world outside. Most middle-class adult women were discouraged from working outside the home. They could afford to send their children to school. As children became more of an economic burden, and better health care decreased infant mortality, middle-class women gave birth to fewer children. This new lifestyle was promoted by the massive immigration into urban cities of the United States. With more workers, there began to be reform movements which made industrial life much safer, and soon weekends became established. actions began to be regularly offered to workers, although they were usually unpaid ones. The monotony of specialized industrial work and the crowding of urban expansion also created a desire in the worker to have leisure time away from his or her job and away from the bustle of the city. The Progressive movement was another factor which contributed to the increased value of leisure time for workers, as their health and well-being received more attention. Within cities, people attended vaudeville shows, which would feature a multitude of acts. Motion pictures also served as entertainment during leisure time for urban audiences. After the Civil War, the popularity of sports as leisure activities grew as people began to see the importance of exercise to health. While initially only the wealthy could partake of most sporting events, the opening of publicly available gymnasiums, courts, and fields allowed the working and middle classes to participate also. Athletic clubs such as the New York Athletic Club were organized and the YMCAs began to institute sports programs. These programs mostly focused on track and field events, instituted by communities of Scottish and English descent, and gymnastics, heavily influenced by German athletics. Gymnasiums, which featured exercises using Indian clubs, wooden rings, and dumbbells, were opened in many Eastern Cities. By the end of the second phase of the Industrial Revolution, there were many activities that were extremely popular among all citizens. These activities included biking, basketball, swimming, baseball, fairs, expositions, and many other affairs. The second phase of the Industrial Revolution clearly impacted the leisure of many citizens, a much bigger increase compared to the first phase of the Industrial Revolution
Societal values have changed drastically through global and American history. Today, hard-work and determination are required in order to be successful in the United States, however, the circumstances in which that success is achieved has changed for the better. Leisure of American citizens before and after the Industrial Revolution greatly increased as a result of reformation movements and family values.
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