Where do the opportunities lay?

Where do you want to be during the industrial revolution if you were a mere peasant? Where do you want to be if you were a wealthy industrialist? After all the documents and videos we have observed in class, it has become clear that if you are an industrialist, you would want to be in Great Britain. Whereas, if you are a worker you would want to be in the United States.

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Great Britain has more workers, and less opportunities; meaning that everyone would want to work for you and whoever had a problem can be easily replaced. Less opportunities for people force them to work for you; and take whatever pay and conditions you offer them. If you were a factory owner then you could make bigger profits in Great Britain because you can pay your workers a low wage, and they would have no choice but to take it. Whereas in the United States there is plenty of land and less workers; so you would have to treat the workers better and pay them better because they could easily leave, and do something else. In Great Britain, as an industrialist you have many raw materials at your disposal because of all the British colonies. This allowed for you to produce and invest in different goods. Also it allowed for more inventions to be built in Britain. Also in Britain they had invented steam powered ships that would make transportation of goods internationally faster and easier. On top of that they had made roads that last longer and railroads so transportation of goods nationally also become faster and easier. Industrialists in Britain were more likely to succeed than in the United States; the industrialist had more advantages in Britain that made it a better place to make money.

http://www.uml.edu/tsongas/bringing-history-home/page_02/images/L-18-f.jpg

In the United States there was endless opportunity; the land was open as far as the eye could see. This enabled workers in the US to have a more positive experience. Factory owners had to pay them well, and treat them well, because if the workers had other opportunities. A factory job wasn't a workers only option; which made the factories pay them better than factories in GB. When we compare the schedules between mill workers in GB and the US we can clearly see that the workers in the US had more breaks, more sleep, and more pay. The US was not fantastic but compared to GB it was considerably better. If you compare Emily Nutter's schedule at the Mill in Lowell and William Coopers schedule at the Mill in GB, it is clear that Emily's life is easier. She has time to eat breakfast, dinner, and supper, and have free time to do whatever she wants. On the other hand William Cooper only has a 40 minute break for lunch for the whole day. He has to eat breakfast on the run and eat dinner on the run. He had to work till 9 p.m for a total of 16 hours; whereas Emily worked till 7 p.m, for a total of 12 hours. In the US only one member of the family had to go, unlike GB where the whole family had to move to the city to work. The girls lived in boarding houses which taught them independence but also they were with other girls their age. These boarding houses were compared to academies where they kept the girls disciplined and moral. Overall the workers had more advantages in the US than in GB, they lived better lives and had more opportunities.