Page:Olive Malmberg Johnson - Woman and the Socialist Movement (1908).djvu/20

 18 The spinning jenny was closely followed by the machine loom and a number of other appliances that completely revolutionized the textile industry. The manufacture of cloth had been woman's occupation throughout the ages. Already during the handicraft period had she commenced to do this work for a livelihood. The competition soon became impossible. The revolution in the weaving industry took this branch of work from the home and made it an industrial pursuit. It became factory work. In England with the development of this industry, and the opening of the world's markets for the products, the demand for wool greatly increased. Merrie England that had been dotted with independent homes was converted into a great sheep pasture. When the process of concentration was too slow the people were forcibly evicted from the land. Home industry was extinguished. The victimized peasants congregated in towns to seek employment. Men, women, and children alike sought refuge from starvation in the factory. The conditions of labor were beyond description. The workers were poor, ignorant and unorganized. Every advantage could be taken of them. The workshops were unsanitary and degrading. The wages were as low as misery could make them and there were practically no limits to the hours of labor. The degradation of the population defies description. The women and children being the weaker ones, suffered the most bitterly. But in proportion as they crowded into the workshops men were also crowded out. Thousands of men sought the highways as tramps and became a menace to the owners of property. Stringent laws were made against them, and it went so far that men were even hanged for vagrancy. That is the manner in which capitalism announces its advent upon the world's stage. Thus did England become the workshop of the world and the Mistress of the Sea, and on the misery of the workers did the English capitalists grow into wealthy lordlings.

Bearing in mind that it is the economic relations that de-