Robert Owen was now twenty years of age. He was sole superintendent of the mill. The owner lived at London and had been up just once—this after Owen had been in his new position for three months. Drinkwater saw various improvements made in the plant—the place was orderly, tidy, cleanly, and the workers were not complaining, although Owen was crowding out the work.
Owen was on friendly terms with his people, visiting them in their homes. He had organized a day-school for the smaller children and a night-school for the older ones who worked in the mills. His friendliness, good-cheer and enthusiasm were contagious. The place was prosperous.
Just here let us make a digression and inspect the peculiar conditions of the time.
It was a period of transition—the old was dying, the new was being born. Both experiences were painful.
There was a rapid displacement of hand labor. One machine did the work of ten or more persons. What were these people who were thrown out, to do? Adjust themselves to the new conditions, you say. True, but many could not. They starved, grew sick, ate their hearts out in useless complaining.
Only a few years before, and the spinning of flax and wool was exclusively a home industry. Every cottage had its spinning-wheel and loom. There was a garden, a cow, a pig, poultry and fruits and flowers. The whole household worked, and the wheel and loom were never idle while it was light. The family worked in relays.
It was a very happy and prosperous time. Life was simple and natural. There was constant labor, but it was diversified. The large flocks of sheep, raised chiefly for wool, made mutton cheap. Everything was home-made. People made things for themselves, and if they acquired a superior skill they supplied their neighbors, or exchanged products with them. As the manufacturing was done in the homes, there was no crowding of population. The factory boarding-house and the tenement were yet to come.
This was the condition up to Seventeen Hundred Seventy. From then until Seventeen Hundred Ninety was the time of transition. By Seventeen Hundred Ninety, mills were erected wherever there was water-power, and the village artisans were moving to the towns to work in the mills.
For the young men and women it was an alluring life. The old way gave them no time to themselves—there was the cow to milk, the pigs and poultry to care for, or the garden making insistent demands. Now they worked at certain hours for certain wages, and rested. Tenements took the place of cottages, and the "public," with its smiling barkeep, was always right at the corner.