"A Shroud as well as a Shirt": An outcry against Victorian working conditions

Victorian working conditions were brutal. This is a point that is rarely debated, as we can easily see in history books the horrors the workers had to endure to survive. But during this time, it was expected. Not accepted, but expected. There was intense outcry against the working conditions from those who were employed in factories and such, but their protests were drowned out by the money of consumers. In Thomas Hood's "The Song of the Shirt," the reader is presented with a song sung by a worker in a factory; a song that is overheard, yet directed at the male consumers that they supplied with shirts.
The entire poem is a blatant cry for help from the woman singing, but she realizes the futility of her calls. She provides the reader with passages describing the intense, mind-numbing work and the harsh reality of the poverty that she lives in, even though she's always working.
She describes her harsh hours, working "While the cock is crowing aloof" until "the stars shine through the roof!" (Lines 10 and 12). This is implicating the length of the workday, essentially sunrise to even after sunset, leading the reader to believe 12-16 hour work days (potentially even more!). With such a long work day, I wouldn't be too surprised if people fell asleep or passed out from exhaustion, which the singer hints at:


"Work — work — work,
Till the brain begins to swim;
Work — work — work,
Till the eyes are heavy and dim!

                                                       (16-19)

The work is mind-numbing and lures the worker into a lethargic state. But not only is there danger from accidents through this, but from crippling exhaustion. The singer is close to death; she does not fear it. In fact, she actually compares herself to the haggard shape of death saying that "[she] hardly fear[s] its terrible shape, / It seems so like [her] own (35-36). And for what? Why does she put herself in such a position where she works so close to death? 

And what are its wages? A bed of straw,
A crust of bread — and rags.
That shattered roof — this naked floor — 
A table — a broken chair — 
And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank
For sometimes falling there!

                                                (43-48)

She works for practically nothing beyond her own means of survival. The prospect of Victorian factories is dreary - there is no chance of any sort of upward mobility for her. But I don't think she actually is looking for that sort of upward mobility, she just wants a chance to breathe, relax, and eat a little more than the scraps she's given. She's extremely practical and easy to please.

The most compelling part of the poem is when the singer turns away from describing her conditions and addresses an invisible audience: the men who purchase the shirts she makes.

"Oh, Men, with Sisters dear!
Oh, men, with Mothers and Wives!
It is not linen you're wearing out, 

But human creatures' lives!

                               (25-28)

She's directly addressing the men who have the ability and money to indulge themselves on the shirts she makes. She's inviting them to imagine that she was some sort of familial relation to them - if she was, would they stand the condition that she was in? Would they accept the horror of her work day? They aren't just shirts that they're wearing, but the lives of the women who poured themselves into the creation of it. If the men were related to the women working, they wouldn't have allowed it; why do they allow it in the circumstance that it is in? She's protesting for the humanity of herself and her fellow women. It's inhumane. She's trying to invoke the feelings of men needing to protect vulnerable women through her song.

Granted, the song goes unheard, but Hood's poem did not. He drew the eyes of many people to the conditions of the women in factories and hopefully made a difference in their lives with his poetry.