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Living in the United States of America, in 2017, children go to school to learn and eventually to become adults then obtain a job and go to work. This is the norm for us and we could not imagine anything different. Prior to what we know to be modern America, children had been servants and apprentices for as long as anyone could remember but, during the industrial revolution, “18% of all American workers were under the age of 16”. Children were desired as workers because of their size and ability to work in small, cramped spaces, such as overcrowded factories or narrow mines.
Furman Owens, was 12 years old in 1909, he worked in a factory, was illiterate and could not recite his A B C’s. He once said, “Yes I want to learn but can't when I work
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This practice saves companies money and increases the amount of workers they can hire, which equals more goods being produced. A con of the cheaper labor is that children can not operate machines as well as adults. The machines were made with the average adult in mind, which therefore made it difficult for children to operate. This resulted in the children climbing on top of the machines which led to more work-related fatalities and injuries. Children are not meant to do adult work. Their minds and bodies are not developed enough to execute the duties as adults …show more content…
In 1916 and in 1918, congress passed laws that restricted child labor but, the supreme court later rejected them and declared them unconstitutional. The public's opinion began to be increasingly hostile toward child labor as the people called for change. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 established and ensured minimum wage, no worker in manufacturing or mining was under the age of 16, maximum hours an employee could work in a week, and limited child labor. Change sprouted from the Great Depression. As men returned home from World War I, the men expected jobs in the work force. Although child laborers had their pros, most companies wanted hard working, returned soldiers to work for
For the first time in history children were an important factor of the economic system, but at a terrible price. The master of the factories employed children for two reasons. One, because of their small body which can get inside the machines to clean it and use their nimble fingers. Second, the masters use to pay low wages to the children who could be easily manipulated. The average age for the parents to send their children to work was ten. Although, Conventional wisdom dictates that the age at which children started work was connected to the poverty of the family. Griffith presents two autobiographies to put across her point. Autobiography of Edward Davis who lacked even the basic necessities of life because of his father’s heavy drinking habit and was forced to join work at a small age of six, whereas the memoir of Richard Boswell tells the opposite. He was raised up in an affluent family who studied in a boarding school. He was taken out of school at the age of thirteen to become a draper’s apprentice. The author goes further and places child employees into three groups, according to the kind of jobs that were available in their neighbourhood. First group composed of children living in rural areas with no domestic industry to work in. Therefore, the average of a child to work in rural area was ten. Before that, farmers use to assign small jobs to the children such as scaring birds, keeping sheep
The childhood of the past has changed through many eras of time. The labor work of children is not needed in a great deal no more. The 1800s was a time of labor for children. Families would have more children than now, because without a child many families could not survive. Children were needed to bring home money and feed the family. The girls were used to do the chores around the house, while the boys were used to do outside work, like cut wood. Children were influenced to do labor. They would not believe in an education, both rural and urban children. Through the industrialization children started working in family farms or in small workshops. Boys and girls would find work at mines or large factories. Children were seen as the important economic survivals to their families. By the 1890s, Canada ...
The labor conditions that children faced were very demanding for a human being from such a small age. For example “In the Manayunk district of Philadelphia, children as young as seven assisted in spinning and weaving of cotton and woolen goods” (Wolensky 2). The children working in the factories had their childhood freedom taken away from them. “In 1830 in a sample of 43 Manchester mills, 22.3% of the workforce was under 14 and 32.4% under 16” (Cunningham 412). This means that about 50% of the workforce in the mills were made up of children under the age of 16 and in today in the United States, a person cannot work until the age of 16. “And it is a hard thing for small children to be confined in a tight close room all day long. It affects their growth, makes them pale and sickly” (Nason). The time these children spent in the factories prevented them from spending time with their neighbors, friends, and family. The fact that young children had to work in these textile mills, created changes to American culture on how childhood years are supposed to be spent.
Canada, although it was very much alike during the 18th and the 19th century, however, when the 20th century came around equality took place and attitudes towards child labour were changing dramatically.
Many states were involved and enacted laws by the 1920s. Overall 36 states set laws against children, under the age of 16, working in factories at night or over eight hours. As a result, a lot people began to see the negative sides of child labor and advocated for children. More kids went to school for free and worked until they were 16. Thanks to the International Labor Organization, they’ve kept an eye out to regulate work since the twentieth century.
Children were great little worker that could fit almost every where, get paid super low wages and just work to help their families. It was proven that more than 1 million kids had worked in America between ages 10-15.(Univ of virginia) None of these little kids were going to get an education due to their social class and on the need to help feed their family. They were “Permitted to work 8 hours shifts, six days a week” (Doc G) The outcome of kids working at factories were terrifying. The children would smoke drink because it would be common for factories workers to do this. They had a mindset to do these thing because that how they were tough their whole life. There was no time for improvement or to get educated. In (doc C) Jane Addam is worry on how we let “admiration of modern industry” make us forget the main focus the “children themselves.“ The purpose of this excerpt is that money and wealth are great but the problem behind all the money are important human being . Company can't just block the harshness and terrible treatment of the kids and get hustled just because their families need food. Europe had this same problem during the industrial revolution, that was child labor as well. They had longer working hours, about 12-15 hours day and if children would get tired and stop the
Many businesses and factories hired children because they were easier to exploit; they could be paid less for more work in dangerous conditions. Plus, their small size made many children idea for working with small parts or fitting into small spaces. Children as young as four could be found working in factories, though most were between eight and twelve. Despite the economic gains made by the business that employed them, many children suffered in the workplace. The industrial setting caused many health problems for the children that, if they lived long enough, they would carry with them for the rest of their lives. Children were also more likely to face accidents in the workplace, often caused by fatigue, and many were seriously injured or killed. Despite efforts by reformers to regulate child labor, it wasn’t until the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 that children under 14 were prohibited from
England was a society dominated by children. During the reign of Queen Victoria one out of three of her servants were under the age of fifteen. Child labor was a prominent issue, because there were no systems to ensure the safety of children. During the start of the industrial revolution, there was a “high demand” for labor (Robson 53). Many families moved from rural areas to new, industrialized cities. After a while things weren’t looking as “promising” as they did before (Boone 23). In order to maintain, families had to put almost all of their family members to work. This led to a rise in the number of child labor. Children were “mistreated, underpayed and overworked” (Kincaid 30). Using children to do all of the hard work, the mining companies believed, was the most sensible and efficient way to get the job done. Because the children were a lot smaller, it was easy for them to “maneuver through tight spaces” and on top of that the children demanded little or no pay at all(Boone 43 ). These wages were enough to persuade companies to use children for all sorts of dangerous jobs such as coal mining and chimney sweeps. Children were called to do many other “horrible” jobs, jobs that adults in this era could not bear, just so long as the bills were paid (Robson 18). The working conditions and treatment of young children during this era was horrible and a lot was done to put an end to it.
Factories were utilizing children to do the hard work. They employed children as young as five or six to work as many as twenty hours a day. According to Document C, children worked in factories to build up muscles and having good intellect in working rather than getting an education. They became a different person rather than conventional children. There were additionally health issues due to child labor: rapid skeletal growth, greater risk of hearing loss, higher chemical absorption rates, and developing ability to assess risks. Progressive Era reformers believed that child labor was detrimental to children and to society. They believed that children should be protected from harmful environments, so they would become healthy and productive adults. In 1912, Congress created the Children’s Bureau to benefit children. The Keating-Owen Act was passed in 1916 to freed children from child labor only in industries that engaged in interstate commerce. However, it was declared unconstitutional sinc...
... this time is self-explanatory, the cost of labor had gone up along with the prices of everything else and child labor was significantly cheap (3-4). Children were sent into fields for twelve to thirteen hours a day picking fruits, cotton and tobacco. Some children delivered the newspaper on bike which is still a common job, only children back then did it hours on end tirelessly. Although the industrial revolution was almost 200 years ago (1820-1870) the influence it had on America is significant; imagine if children would have stayed in school during that time rather than going out and working extensive hours in field or factories. Do you think if children were never exposed to harsh working environments then, that today, child labor would be a problem? Many think our ancestors are to blame and others say children have been working since the days of the Egyptians.
Think about the cotton in your shirt, the sugar in your coffee, and the shoes on your feet, all of which could be products of child labor. Child labor is a practice that deprives children of their childhood, their potential, and their dignity and includes over 200 million children worldwide who are involved in the production of goods for companies and industries willing to exploit these kids for profit. Although most countries have laws prohibiting child labor, a lack of funding and manpower means that these laws are rarely enforced on a large scale. However, even for a first-world country like the United States, that has a large number of state and federal law enforcement officers, child labor is still a problem because priority is given to crimes that are more violent or heinous. Child labor must be made a priority issue because it is a global plague whose victims are physically and psychologically scarred, lack a proper education, are impoverished, and whose children are doomed to the same fate if nothing changes.
The Fair Labor Standards Act passed in 1938 and provided three important innovations that had a positive impact for the American worker. These included an increase in the minimum wage over a four-year span that would guarantee an hourly worker a decent wage and provided for maximum working hours. The law also prohibited child labor in industries that engaged in interstate commerce. (p. 270
According to the article “A History of Child Labor” reviewed by Milton Fried, a child could work as long as six days a week for up to 18 hours a day, and only make a dollar a week. Child labor was nothing but cheap labor. The big companies loved cheap labor because then they could make an item for not very much money, and make a huge profit margin. Fried continues to state how cheap the labor was, “One glass factory in Massachusetts was fenced with barbed wire ‘to keep the young imps inside.’ These were boys under 12 who carried loads of hot glass all night for a wage of 40 cents to $1.10 per night.” Unlike, children today who are in bed sleeping by 8 pm each night, these children had to stay up all night working to make just enough income for their families. Sadly, the children had no choice but to work for very little pay. Their mothers and fathers made so little money in the factory system that they couldn’t afford to let their children enjoy their childhood: “Other working children were indentured—their parents sold their labor to the mill owner for a period of years. Others lived with their families and worked for wages as adults did, for long hours and under hard conditions” (Cleland). The child had no other choice, but to work for these big
Imagine waking up at five in the morning to walk over a mile to a factory where you work until noon where you get a half hour break for lunch, then it’s back to work until nine or ten at night, when you are finally allowed to go home and you are only eight years old. Today that seems unimaginable, but during the early 19th century it was the everyday life of thousands of children whose ages range from as young as five until you died. During the Industrial Revolution many children were required to work dangerous jobs to help their families.
Child labour is an issue that has plagued society since the earliest of times. Despite measures taken by NGOs as well as the UN, child labour is still a prevalent problem in today’s society. Article 23 of the Convention on the Rights of a Child gives all children the right to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child 's education, or to be harmful to the child 's health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.1 Child labour clearly violates this right as well as others found in the UDHR. When we fail to see this issue as a human rights violation children around the world are subjected to hard labour which interferes with education, reinforces