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Class three described the construction of the first cotton textile factory, Quarry Mill Bank, in Manchester by Samuel Gregg in 1784. In present-day American political discourse manufacturing jobs in factories are often held up as highly desirable. This was far from true in the eighteenth century. Hours were long, often 14-hour days six days a week, the pay was low, factories were hot, noisy, and dangerous. In short, very few people were willing to do factory work unless under duress.
Before long there was active opposition to factory work. This motivated partly by the mindless drudgery of factory work and partly in outrage over the loss of home workshops to factory competition. Their hero was a perhaps mythical character named Ned Ludd who supposedly went about the countryside destroying mill equipment.
Eventually, the government would establish military barracks in factory areas to protect the factories and to prosecute Luddites intent upon breaking the machines.
