Our class got a very rare opportunity to FaceTime a factory museum in England. We got to see how the machines in the mills worked, how people lived back then, and we got to ask questions to the museum guide Jamie. Before the chat we had to prepare in class. Jamie had sent us a video of the machines at the museum and used a lot of terminology. To prepare, we took notes on the video and searched up any vocab that we did not know. Most of this vocab was words related to that time and parts of the mills machines. Some of these words included hopper feeder scutcher, carding engine, and draw frame. We used our Google search skills and searched and learned the terminology so we would actually know what Jamie was talking about when it came time to FaceTime him. Some of us had even drafted questions we wished to ask Jamie.
Although there were some technical issues the chat with Jamie at the museum was really cool and I learned a lot. I learned a lot about the impact on the families. In the beginning making textiles was a family affair, women and children would prepare cotton and the man would weave. This took a lot of effort on everyone's part but it was not a well-paid job, just enough to get by, if you were lucky. Once money became scarce girls would move to Lowell, away from their families, to earn some money. I learned that throughout the years the textile technology became more efficient and less dependent on human power. A machine that was one reliant on human power, like having someone peddle to make a wheel turn, was now run by water power or steam. What really shocked me most was how bad the conditions were in England at the time. Jamie had said that there were not plates or forks for the meals; that the workers would have to hold their food in their clothing and eat with their hands. Another fact that really stood out to me was that there was about 1 toilet for every 125 people. I cannot imagine how disgusting that was, that is how a lot of disease had spread throughout the workers. Jamie had also told us that factory owners would go out and buy orphans for the dangerous jobs because no parents would let their child do that. I did not realize just how bad of conditions there was during the Industrial Revolution until Jamie had told us these stories.
Overall, I learned a lot from this chat with Jamie. I loved seeing the machines and how they worked; it helped me understand the whole process better and just how dangerous it was. I liked how he went into detail and told stories of that time, like the one about the girl who gotten stuck in a machine and parts of her body had to be picked out of it. These stories and insights made everything seem more real. I would love to do this again with other topics throughout the school year. I think it is a very interesting and cool way of learning and going deeper into a topic.
