I am answering the question of “What Can I Learn About the Society That Produced This Document?” During 1835, this society is at the height of the industrial revolution; countries are competing against each other and many new things are being invented and produced in a high volume state. As we look back at this time, we see this as a pivotal point in human history. Also that this time, there were many conflicts that arose between revolutionaries and workers due to the massive wealth disparity. Andrew Ure was an industrial revolution enthusiast. He looked upon the great “bleesings” of which the new machinery and advances have made towards society. While he does acknowledge the conflicts going on between the owners and workers, he sees the great potential economic and societal changes that will incur, also the relief of manual labor. 

“here is, however, this difference in the two cases, that in the factory, every member of the loom is so adjusted, that the driving force leaves the attendant nearly nothing at all to do, certainly no muscular fatigue to sustain, while it procures for him good, unfailing wages, besides a healthy workshop gratis: whereas the non-factory weaver, having everything to execute by muscular exertion, finds the labour irksome, makes in consequence innumerable short pauses, separately of little account, but great when added together; earns therefore proportionally low wages, while he loses his health by poor diet and the dampness of his hovel….

The constant aim and effect of scientific improvement in manufactures are philanthropic, as they tend to relieve the workmen either from niceties of adjustment which exhaust his mind and fatigue his eyes, or from painful repetition of efforts which distort or wear out his frame. At every step of each manufacturing process described in this volume the humanity of science will be manifest….”

By assessing this quote, he tries to convey the upsides of the current technological evolution and production in workers. Unlike the past where the worker would need to use every ounce of their body towards production, the machines available their bodies which would help the worker become healthier. To add to his point, he uses the example of the old production of cotton.

“But the spinning of an entangled flock of fibres into a smooth thread, which constitutes the main operation with cotton, is in silk superfluous; being already performed by the unerring instinct of a worm, which leaves to human art the simple task of doubling and twisting its regular filaments. The apparatus requisite for this purpose is more elementary, and calls for few of those gradations of machinery which are needed in the carding, drawing, roving, and spinning processes of a cotton-mill.”

By using this example, he conveys that with the relief of manual labor, humans don’t have to endure the harsh conditions of production and that the machine will pretty much do all the work. He also describes how child labor will be dismissed by the new workplace.

“the constant aim and tendency of every improvement in machinery to supersede human labour altogether, or to diminish its cost, by substituting the industry of women and children for that of men; or that of ordinary labourers for trained artisans. In most of the water-twist, or throstle cotton-mills, the spinning is entirely managed by females of sixteen years and upwards. The effect of substituting the self-acting mule for the common mule, is to discharge the greater part of the men spinners, and to retain adolescents and children.”

This time era was full of conflict and innovations, and there were many great debates of what the effect of this would all cause but according to Andrew Ure, there are positives that should be accounted for.