After reading lyrics to the "Song of The Shirt", I guess we can all infer, or imagine, how life and work was back then. It wasn't the best thing in the world and it probably wasn't as worth it in the end. It was hard and exhausting, not like us today where we work shorter hours and are given lunch breaks. From the lyrics, the day of a worker starts very early and will work continuously until late night. A woman is sitting in a dirty, and probably disgusting, environment sewing all day for a living. She was also poor as it says "... Stitch, Stitch, Stitch, in poverty, hunger, and dirt," She doesn't get time to stop and rest or to get something to eat, "But why do I talk of Death, that phantom of grisly bone ? I hardly fear his terrible shape, it seems so like my own,"
So then, life for textile factory workers were most likely like hers but even worse because they have to do so much more. Depending on what they're doing, they have to work machinery by hand, move things around, etc. and all that heavy and hard work tires out people faster and are extremely exhausted, maybe even close to dying because they don't get rests, and work from day to night, everyday.
