Ashley Filapose

Maureen Vissat
Western Cultural Traditions II
7 April 2014
Reacting to the Past: Response Essay
Part I: Discussion of Minimum Wage and the Spinning Mule in Role
As a clockmaker and inventor, I have the ability of looking at the topic of minimum wage

from 2 different perspectives, one from the side of the worker and one from the side of someone

who wants to revolutionize the industry of Manchester. I think it is important that factories,

which are rising in power, pay their workers steady wages. Raising the minimum wage currently

is not a good idea for either the weavers or the factory owners, because as we saw after our first

community decision, this caused factory owners to layoff adult workers, hiring more children

and providing families with even less income. With new inventions coming into the industry, like

my invention of the Spinning Mule, factories in the near future will be able to employ less

workers, meaning women and children can begin to be filtered out of the work environment. This

would enable factories to pay their workers more since there are fewer employees to pay,

efficiency and production will increase with new inventions, and large factories will be equipped

to produce everything needed for their products all in one place, reducing production costs.
As a craftsman myself, I feel it is only fair that workers be paid enough so that they can

provide for their families and not live poverty after all their hard work. As David Ricardo stated

in chapter 5 of Principles of the Political Economy, The natural price of labour, therefore,

depends on the price of the food, necessaries, and conveniences required for the support of the

labourer and his family. (APPENDIX D: David Ricardo, Principles of Political Economy (1817)

Chapter V, p. 1) This clearly shows that wages must be balanced, allowing the factories to gain

profit but also allow the families to sustain themselves with their income. With such low wages,

workers become discouraged and will be less likely to put a significant amount of effort into

their work.
 I believe that the more we put into our business and the labor behind them, the more we

will get out of them and the more we can allow out community to flourish and our businesses to

evolve. As Adam Smith states in The Wealth of Nations, The wages of labour are the

encouragement of industry, which, like every other human quality, improves in proportion to the

encouragement it receives. (APPENDIX A: Excerpts from Adam Smiths Wealth of Nations

(1776), Book 1, Chapter 8: Of the Wages of Labor, p. 16) If our community follows Smiths

guiding principle, workers will be more encouraged to take pride in the quality of their work,

which will aid factories, if they are paid an income that that can support them. In conclusion, I

think that for the time being we need to reduce women and child labor in factories, allowing for

male workers wages to increase over time as businesses increase in efficiency and production.
My invention the Spinning Mule is a great improvement on the Spinning Jenny, utilizing

far more spindles for faster and more efficient production. It combines the structure of the

Spinning Jenny with that of the water frame, which allows for production of greater variety of

products, with stronger yarn from the water frame and the use of more than one ball of yarn with

the spindles (Bellis, Industrial Revolution- Spinning Jenny). As previously mentioned, my

invention will also require fewer workers, approximately 2 to 4 per machine, which could be

beneficial to factories and down the road, wages of workers. Some women workers would be

able to return home if they chose to, being able to take care of their children and not be exposed

to such long working hours on top of caring for a family. On that not, my invention would need

to be housed in a large factory, due to its size because of the number of spindles it uses. I think

my invention will help to revolutionize production, along with helping to bring factories into the

forefront of industry. I would like to submit this summary of my ideas for my invention to the

Manchester Chronicle, in hopes that merchants will be encouraged to invest in my Spinning

Mule.
Part 2: Self-Assessment
In participating in this Reacting to the Past activity in class, I was able to approach

history from a first person perspective, learning how to analyze the events as someone who lived

through them. In researching the current issues of the time, such as women in the workforce and

minimum wage, I learned that while many things have changed since 1817, these issues are still

dealt with today in our modern world. Reacting to the Past taught me that in order to fully assess

such serious issues, we have to be unbiased and aim to see the perspectives of all those affected

by a decision, just how when we were participating in class, we had to try and understand how

our actions would affect workers, the Church, the factory owners, and other parities. I also

learned how important communication is not only the classroom but also in any social situation.

It was important to establish who I was fighting for as a character which I found challenging.

Being that I was a clockmaker and worker myself, I wanted to stand up for the weavers, but at

the same time I was a business man trying to sell my invention, so I sided more with the

merchants and factory owners, in order to establish communication with them but also be a voice

for the workers inside the factory system. Overall, Reacting to the Past was a great experience

because it forced me to do outside research and really explore the material and issues presented

and it also gave me a more personal view of the history of Manchester in 1817.
I think that I met the requirements for this activity because I did my part in researching

not only character, but also the documents provided in order to get a better understanding of what

life would have been like for people during this time. I also prepared talking points prior to class,

in order to have a well thought out speech or argument for the given topic of the day in class. I

think that I could have advertised or spoken about my invention in role more, being that someone

like my character would have been willing to do anything to get people talking about their

invention, eventually getting factories to purchase it so that they could provide for both
themselves and their family. I also think that I should have tried to speak during every class even

if it was just a short thought in order to get my opinion heard. Looking back, I could have spoke

about child labor by bringing up the idea that my invention would be safer and easier to manage

and also that it could lead to fewer children being employed in the factories, needing fewer

workers. For my participation grade, I would give myself a 90% because while I did not speak

every class and could have spoken more about my characters invention, I did listen attentively

to others and I present researched and organized speeches during the majority of the classes that

were both relevant to the topics and in accordance with my role as a clockmaker and inventor.

Works Cited

APPENDIX A: Excerpts from Adam Smiths Wealth of Nations (1776). Book 1, Chapter 8: Of

the Wages of Labour

APPENDIX D: David Ricardo, Principles of Political Economy (1817). Chapter V: On Wages

Bellis, Mary. "Industrial Revolution - Spinning Jenny." Inventors.about.com. About.com. Web. 4

Apr. 2015. <http://inventors.about.com/od/indrevolution/ss/Industrial_Revo_3.htm#ste

-heading>.