Industrialization and the birth of the working class

The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain in the late eighteenth century, gave birth to an entirely new social class: the urban proletariat. Life inside the new factory system was harsh. Workdays in textile mills routinely ran twelve to sixteen hours, six days a week, and child labor was widespread, with children as young as five or six working in mines and textile mills until Britain's Factory Act of 1833 began to restrict the practice. Wages were extremely low and were frequently paid in kind or through the exploitative "truck" system, in which workers were paid in vouchers redeemable only at company-owned stores.