What were the working conditions that existed in the factories?

The working conditions in the factories were unsafe and unsanitary.

"...... let a man so much as scrape his finger pushing a truck in the pickle rooms, and he might have a sore that would put him out of the world; all the joints in his fingers might be eaten by the acid, one by one. Of the butchers and floorsmen, the beef boners and trimmers, and all those who used knives, you could scarcely find a person who had the use of his thumb; time and time again the base of it had been slashed, till it was a mere lump of flesh.....they would have no nails-they had worn them off pulling hides".