2010 DBQ – The Mechanization of Cotton in Japan and India
Analyze the following attempts at thesis, point of view and additional document … and decide whether each gets the point (+), doesn’t get the point (-), or is borderline (?).
Thesis
1. In this essay I will state why or why not women in Japan worked in factories, and why most women in British controlled India did not. The women in India saw that India was leaning more towards the agricultural production for revenue, while Japan was booming in the textile industry. Japanese women recognized that and instead of working on the farms where they would have only gotten enough money to support herself, so instead they worked in factories to earn yen for their parents. Indian women knew they’d be better off working on farms in an agriculture-based economy. (-)
2. This essay will analyze similarities and differences in the mechanization of the cotton industry in Japan and India. A difference would be that in Japan most workers were women, while in India they seemed to be more men. Once both India and Japan were mechanized their production went up. Also in India and Japan the employees were not paid well. (+)
3. In the period from the 1880s to the 1930s, many technological advancements were made in the cotton industry. This mechanization improved production greatly in Japan and India. (-)
4. This essay will argue that during the 1880s to 1930s time period there were similarities between Japan and India in regard to the mechanization of the cotton industry specific to changes in the production of cotton and the poor labor conditions and wages. There were also differences in the sense of gender roles taken in the production of cotton during this time period between the two countries of India and Japan. (+)
Point of view
1. This source is trusted because she is talking about her first-hand experiences. (-)
2. The author lived in the region where this happened often so he can recall what families often had to resort to doing. (?)
3. These statistics were published long after the years they are encompassing. This leads me to believe the author could have messed with the stats to prove a point he or she was making. (?)
4. He is clearly biased towards industry and isn’t telling the truth. (-)
5. The industrialist is saying this to make industrialists seem good and stop reform so he can continue to make money. (+)
6. The British colonial authorities may have included the figures on hand-woven cloth vs. machine-made cloth to show that hand-woven cloth was still prominent, hoping to appease the many natives that disliked the changes. (+)
7. The fact that Shunsuke is an industrialist himself shows that he knows where to find cheap labor and adds to his credibility. (?)
8. He might’ve said what he did because he was an Indian economist who wrote “The Foundation of Indian Economics.” The foundation of Indian economics was its textile industry before and after the British colonized it. So to diminish what brought so much wealth to India must have been frustrating for him. (+)
9. Since these two women must think back to this time, their memories could be a bit distorted, causing the statistics to be off by some amount. (+)
10. Because he is an industrialist, he is trying to persuade people into seeing why the wages are low and supporting such low income. (?)
11. The point of view was to show how they waited a year to get money. (-)
12. The Buddhist priest wrote this because he probably wanted to inform the world that women actually helped and did work, they weren’t just housewives or domestic women. (?)
13. He probably says this because he is an economist and has been studying these patterns. (-)
14. He might state this from personal history or from study, given that he is an industrialist. (-)
15. I believe British colonial authorities compared machine- to hand-woven spinning to show the increased productivity and what their factories can achieve in order to promote their imperial presence in India. (+)
16. This report can be trusted because it was sent to the British royal Commission of Labor. (-)
17. The women took this point of view as it was their childhood and were able to recall the harsh treatment and payment they had received. (-)
18. Because they’re older and don’t work there anymore they’re not lying to keep from being fired. However, if we had a death certificate stating the cause of death and it did link back to the factory we could better verify her sister’s death and working/living conditions. (+) for both POV and Additional Document
Additional document
1. This account calls for an additional document to prove the wages the women stated were accurate, a sort of paycheck or record of employee wages is needed, as well as a record stating if they were paid monthly or annually. (+)
2. A document from a manager choosing workers could also confirm the gender bias in the factories. (?)
3. An additional document from other rural communities from different areas of Japan could be used to confirm if 60% of crops were sent to the landlord to establish how widespread it was or if it was only in one oppressed town. (?)
4. An additional document would be needed to help the reader out by knowing how much better machine-made cloths were. (-)
5. A document analyzing India’s factory workers and their P.O.V. of their daily life compared to that of Japan. (-)
6. An additional document needed would be the amount of children sent to work before machine manufacturers took over and afterward. (-)
7. An additional document needed would be the income of farmers compared to the income of factory workers. (-)
8. A chart showing the average worker’s pay throughout the years in Japan would help prove that the girls’ memories were not fogged but accurate. (+)
9. A sufficient additional document would be reports of tuberculosis patients from mills of both countries to analyze how many people got sick while working in the mills. (?)
10. An additional document needed would be a map showing where cotton factory workers were from, to fully understand the background of the workers and know if workers also came from cities as well as rural areas. (+)
11. In order to make this essay better I would have liked to see the amount of children working compared to adults. This would make a comparison possible between India and Japan on their reliance on child labor. (+)
12. There is a need for an additional document to understand why women didn’t go and work in these Indian factories. Something that would help one assess this is a personal diary of a woman who wanted to work in the factory but was not allowed. (?)
13. A necessary additional document would be a report of exactly how long workers in India and Japan had to work per day, and how many breaks they got. (-)
14. The report of the British Royal Commission of Labor in India (D7) states that most of the workers in the cotton mills are recruited from among the small peasants and agricultural laborers of the village. An additional document showing the amount of cotton mill workers in Japan and India from this time that came from rural, agricultural villages would be helpful to analyze this claim more closely. (+)
15. An important additional document needed is statistics on the cotton industry in the United States so they could be compared to both Japan and India. (-)