Factories and Workers MCQs Quiz | Class 10

This quiz on ‘Factories and Workers’ for Class X History, part of ‘The Age of Industrialisation’ unit, focuses on industrial labour and working conditions. Test your knowledge with these multiple-choice questions. After attempting, submit your answers to see your score and review correct solutions. You can also download a PDF of your answer sheet for future reference.

Factories and Workers: A Glimpse into Early Industrial Life

The rise of factories marked a pivotal shift from agrarian and proto-industrial societies to a modern industrial economy. This transformation, particularly evident in 19th-century Britain and later in other parts of the world, brought millions from rural areas to burgeoning industrial towns in search of work. While factories promised employment, they also introduced a new, often harsh, reality for industrial labour.

Key Points

  • Shift from Cottage Industry: Before factories, production often occurred in homes (cottage industries). Factories centralized production, bringing machines and workers under one roof.
  • Emergence of Industrial Labour: As mechanization advanced, a distinct class of ‘industrial workers’ emerged, predominantly former agricultural laborers, artisans, and rural migrants.
  • Role of Technology: Inventions like the Spinning Jenny (James Hargreaves) and the steam engine (James Watt) revolutionized production, making factories the center of economic activity.

Working Conditions

  • Long Hours: Typically, factory workers endured 10 to 14-hour workdays, six days a week, with minimal breaks.
  • Low Wages: Wages were often barely enough to survive, and entire families, including women and children, had to work to make ends meet.
  • Unsafe Environments: Factories were frequently poorly lit, badly ventilated, and unsanitary. Unguarded machinery posed constant risks of injury, mutilation, or death. Accidents were common.
  • Child Labour: Children, sometimes as young as five or six, were employed because they could fit into small spaces to repair machinery and could be paid even less than adults. This led to stunted growth, deformities, and high mortality rates.
  • Women in Factories: Women often worked alongside men, facing similar harsh conditions but usually for lower wages. They were preferred in certain industries like textiles due to their perceived dexterity.
  • Seasonal Unemployment: Many industries, like gas works and breweries, had seasonal demand for labour, leaving workers jobless for several months of the year, leading to immense hardship.
  • Housing: Workers’ housing in industrial towns was typically overcrowded, unsanitary, and lacked basic amenities, leading to the rapid spread of diseases.

Impact and Response

  • The harsh conditions led to early forms of worker resistance and the eventual formation of trade unions and labor movements advocating for better wages, shorter hours, and safer environments.
  • Government intervention, albeit slow, eventually led to Factory Acts that regulated working hours, child labour, and safety standards.

Quick Revision Checklist

  • Proto-industrialization vs. factory system.
  • Who were early factory workers?
  • Common working hours and wages.
  • Safety hazards in factories.
  • Reasons for employing women and children.
  • Impact of seasonal work.
  • Rise of labor movements.

Practice Questions

  1. What distinguished factory production from earlier forms of industry like cottage production?
  2. Describe three specific hazards faced by workers in early industrial factories.
  3. How did the availability of surplus agricultural population contribute to industrial labour?
  4. Discuss the reasons behind the widespread use of child labour in 19th-century factories.
  5. What were the long-term consequences of the deplorable working conditions on society and labor movements?