Blood in the Machine

Before industrialization, weavers in Britain enjoyed a healthy work-life balance and 30-hour workweeks.

Before the advent of the mechanical power loom in 1786, many of Britain’s weavers lived with their families in thriving rural communities, running their businesses from the comfort of their homes. In Yorkshire’s West Riding, for example, families worked together and divvied up tasks, such as dying, spinning, and weaving wool, against a picturesque backdrop of rolling green hills. Everyone in the family would contribute to the business. The days could be hard, but economic inequality was rare, and workers enjoyed autonomy, flexible schedules, long weekends, and 30-hour workweeks. 

However, by the turn of the 19th century, automation — though no one would use that term until the 1940s — threatened to shatter many British cottage industries. In West Riding, mechanical “shearing frames” and “gig mills” threatened the livelihoods of skilled human cloth-cutters. Once machines partially automated cloth cutting, any unskilled laborer — even a child — could get the job done. In Nottingham...