I wasn't "romanticizing" it, by any means. Life was a bitch, and the farther back in history you go, the worse of a bitch it was.

The $64,000 question of course, is what Gus, Eddie, and James would have been doing with themselves if the factories had not been there in 1900. Not playing video games. What did their parents do at the age of 12? Their grandparents? Gus, Eddie and James are well-known because Mother Jones marched them to see the President in 1903. The President told them this was not a Federal problem. This was back in the days when politicians still thought that there were things that were not Federal problems.

Who went out with guns and ropes and hauled these families into the factories? Is it at all possible that even a crappy job in a factory was better than the risky life of subsistence farming? Sure as hell those kids would be working their butts off from dawn to dusk on a farm. I will admit a lot of people had little choice. Certainly it seems to be that an immigrant who came fresh to the country would find it easier to get a job in a factory than to acquire enough land for even a small farm, although all my ancestors came straight from overseas and somehow landed on farms in the Midwest. And yes, my Dad worked his butt off on one when he was 12.

I'm not pretending early factories were heaven. Far from it. But it was better than the alternative for many people. Ask the people working in modern "sweatshops" overseas what they would be doing if the factory was not there.

And I'm not pretending the workers back then had no real grievances, or that they were wrong to unionize, particularly in the face of collective action against them on the part of the owners. But Mother Jones was also an enthusiastic socialist, and had her own agenda.

Naturally, owners who did not mistreat workers don't make the history books.

Gus grew up to be a cop, with ten grandchildren. In the days before the Industrial Revolution, he would have been a farmer. And so would his kids, grandkids, and great grandkids. Those who survived.

A balanced, and well-written view of the Industrial Revolution can be found in Jacob Bronowski's "Ascent of Man," in the chapter titled "The Drive For Power."