Without a job, we wouldn’t have money, and without money, we wouldn’t have food, housing, material goods, insurance, and education. The workplace is constantly evolving because of changes in politics, technology, and economics. All these changes create issues that become relevant to social work and social welfare. I will be going over the history of work in the agriculture era, industrial revolution, and urbanization. The main occupations in the agriculture era from 1630 to 1760 were based in agriculture. These jobs were associated with lumber, food, cotton, and dairy and were often divided by gender.
Men would usually plow, sow, till and chop, while women gardened, sewed, and cooked.
Agriculture slavery began when the cultivation of tobacco required heavy labor. This began in 1518 and was spread throughout the sugar-growing areas during the next two centuries. The institution was then abolished between 1863 to 1865 set by President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. The Emancipation Proclamation declared, “that all persons held as slaves are, and henceforward shall be free;” However, the discrimination against former slaves had a lasting impact on their education, occupation, and trade and union membership to African Americans.
The goal for the social welfare in place during this time was to make family members economically useful to their families and worthy members of society. The industrial revolution from 1760 to 1840 impacted almost every part of work and family life. Which then introduced wage laborers, who sold their work hours to factories, mining operations, in exchange for a salary. Francis Cabot Lowell’s power loom dominated the global textile industry.
Even young girls could do the work, which they were called the Lowell Mill Girls. They lived in close quarters and boarding houses supervised by matrons. More than 8,000 women worked in the mills, forming 75% of the mill labor force. Many of the Lowell Mill Girls joined the American union movement to protest living and working conditions. They demanded these reforms; education, public lands, no more abuse of child labor, restrictions on competitive prison labor, better working conditions for women, 10 hour workday without any decreases in wages, government control of currency, the right to organize, and jobs for the unemployment in public work programs.
A new attitude towards social problems developed during the industrial revolution. Urbanization is the process in which large numbers of people leave farm life to work and live in cities, this began between 1860 to 1950. The main feature of the industrial revolution was the development of cities. From the mid- 19th century to the start of the 20th century the growth of American cities was supported by the increase of immigrants looking for work. The turmoil of the labor force was a threat to the business community, causing owners to become associated with the welfare movement (welfare capitalism). It had two basic goals; supporting a diverse workforce that would maintain the establishment values and goals of management, and discouraging workers from union membership. The human relations school of management emerged with the decline of the welfare movement.
It focused on the changes in the labor workforce due to military service and the diversity of workers who were, female, older, and members of minorities. Although there was a decrease in occupational social service programs there was an increase in the number of alcoholism programs. By the 1950s a vast number of companies had established occupational alcoholism programs for workers and their families. Overall, there have been many changes in the workplace. It went from agriculture jobs to machinery jobs, and finally to city jobs. The workplace has come a long way since the 1630s and it’s going to keep changing with the years to come.
Social Work Trait Of Our Society. (2021, Dec 11). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/social-work-trait-of-our-society/