In factories, coal mines and other workplaces, people worked long hours in miserable conditions. As countries industrialized, factories became larger and produced more goods. Earlier forms of work and ways of life began to disappear. ... Once factories were built, most men no longer worked at home
Northern workers gave up their traditional way of life—working in the home, on a small farm, or in a small workshop—for work in a large integrated mill with new machines that sped up the manufacturing process. Workers also shifted from self-sufficiency and bartering to a commercial economy where goods were bought in stores for cash. Workers’ lives were governed by the clock instead of the changing seasons. Industrialization had environmental effects on farmers' fields and on fish populations.
Northern as well as southern workers were treated like components in the machine of the factory or plantation system, and cotton as a commodity crop governed the lives of workers in both regions.
