The Industrial Revolution shaped the working lives of the characters in Working in many ways of which they would probably be unaware.
Grace Clements, a mill worker in a luggage factory, laments, “In the summertime, the temperature at our work station ranges anywhere from 100 to 150 degrees...I work eight straight hours...,” hardly the most stimulating work making suitcases and not optimal conditions, but still a vast improvement over sixteen hour days, little to eat, and sleeping on a cold floor.