"Dark Satonic Mills"

There are always two sides to every story, and I think it's interesting how this period of history during when mills were developing, has both a good side and bad side, even though I think there is more bad during this time than there is good. I think it was good how people were finding ways to be more efficient and allowing women to have more independence, but there were doing alot of bad things.

First, they were starting to destroy the environment, which upsets me because of how people didnt recognize that they were doing this. By building those mills, they had to cut down numerous trees, which means they were destroying alot of habitat for the wildlife in the areas they were building. I dont understand how they didnt know or care about what they were doing to the land and how it would affect future generations. This is more of a modern way of thinking though, and its hard to separate modern views from the views from during this time

While it was a good thing that the owners of the mills were hiring women, helping them gain independence and earn money for themselves and families, they were also exploiting them by paying low wages and having them work long hours. The workers were like slaves in a way because they were doing hard work that the owners werent doing and were gaining profits from. The textbook says that the women were living in better conditions than in the crowded farmhouses, and could go to plays, concerts, and lectures, which is an improvement to what they lived in before, but they were working about 12 hours a day, 6 days a week.