Reading about the sweat shops and the labor was horrible. The things the lower class had to go through and how little pay the received from working all day . The had low pay and horrible working conditions. The conditions were filthy and some places it was not safe to work in. People had no choice but to work in those conditions and accept the little to almost nothing pay they were being paid. The things that are the same from then and now would be how there are some places where people are still being treated poorly in poor working conditions. The only thing about today is how we have rules and people can defend themselves from extreme conditions. We have a human resource department in almost every job.