Cruelty of Child Labor
Even though poor families would rely on the income of their children's labor as a supplement of income, child labor should not have been accepted during the 1900’s. Child labor effects malnutrition, children's health, premature ageing, and length of their life shortens depending on the job they have because children's brain development depends on interaction with other kids and learning about their environment and surroundings like attending school were they could learn instead of working in unsafe areas. Child labor was a big issue during the 1900’s, but not that many people were aware of it. That's why people like the muckrakers were helping society by spreading awareness. It states in the article Child Labor “it
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In this article it states “The factories were often damp, dark, and dirty with few toilet facilities. The machines and sharp tools used performing various jobs caused many injuries”(History of Child Labor in America). Working in factories was dangerous back then. Corruption and abuse towards workers was very frequent. The rich got richer and poor got poorer, barely any workers got out of poverty during that time. The workers had no voice in their work, they continued to live there poor repetitive lives over and over again. Injures were very common for children because factories were not safe and no one was taking care of them. It states that “Fatigued workers cannot do their best at work or school. Mill work was hazardous and among its dangers were splintered wood floors that could cause trouble for bare feet. Lint in the air was another problem. Breathed in, this lint could cause a fatal disease known as brown lung”(Child Labor and the Textile Mills). Children were very young when they started working. Instead of attending school many of them were busy working and helping their families. Factories employing children were often very dangerous places leading to injuries and even deaths. Machines were so fast in factories body parts could easily get stuck and cut off legs and arms like butter. Besides machines the environment was disgusting, the air was horrible for one's lungs and caused many other diseases which society did not know about. Especially for children, these nasty environment setting was bad for their development, malnutrition, and length of children shortened. As children continue to work during their life they end up with chronic diseases from the dirty factory
Imagine being forced to work in conditions that might cause you to lose a limb, to be beaten daily, or to be left with long term respiratory conditions. These terrible conditions were realities to families who worked in textile factories in the 1700’s. England was the first to adopt textile factories which would benefit with mass production of cotton material. According to the power point, “Industrial Revolution; Life in English Factories”, low and unskilled workers, often children, ran the machines and moved material, this helped lower the cost of goods. During this time, commissions investigated the working conditions of the factories.
Factory workers worked twelve to fifteen hours a day in hazardous condition. There were no protective rules for women and children and no insurances for job-related accidents or industrial illness. The workers were obliged to trade at company store
The owners of these factories had no incentive to look out for the child’s safety or health. The workers also followed a very strict schedule. All workers had to be at the same place at the same time allotted to them. If a worker was injured, he was easily replaced. Another negative was the working conditions.
Often, children were forced to work due to money-related issues, and the conditions they worked in were terrible. Children worked in coal mining, such as at Woodward Coal Mining in Kingston, Pennsylvania (Doc. 7). Children were used to make the process of producing products cheaper, and they were paid low wages; the capitalists hired children just to keep the process of making products going and to make profit. One cause of child labor in harsh conditions was the unfateful fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory in New York City in 1911. Teenaged immigrant girls that were employed there worked under sweatshop-like conditions. The building they worked in was inadequately equipped in case of a fire, for the doors were locked, leaving no exit for the girls, and the single fire escape collapsed with the rescue effort; as a result, when the fire started, they were unable to escape. 145 workers were killed, but the company owners were not penalized harshly for this tragedy. This further demonstrates that capitalists were able to get away with the harsh conditions that they put their laborers, especially child laborers, through for their own benefit, which is making more money and using any means to get it, even if those means are low wages and harsh working
Most of the factories owners treated their employees unfairly and unequally. They made them work large amounts of hours for underpaid wages. Most of the people, even children, worked 16 hours for 25 cents a day. Their employees had to deal with unsafe machines that sometimes were extremely dangerous. If they got injured, they didn’t have any financial aid or any kind of compensation that helps them to get better.
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
Children as young as young as five or seven years old worked in dangerous factories. Many times if the children fell asleep while on the job, they would slip and get stuck in the machines, resulting in death. Child labor in the late 1800’s was very unsafe and put the lives of young children in danger. The children worked in very dangerous conditions, most of the time it was factories. The conditions were very poor, the factories were dirty and unsafe for children. The children would work for up to sixteen hours with little to no pay.
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
In the beginning of the Industrial Revolution had a considerable effect on the working conditions of workers. A large labor surplus led to very low wages, and intense competition lowered the profit boundaries of industrialists. Industries such as the cotton trade were especially hard for workers to endure long hours of labor. The workplace was very hot, and the steam engines contributed further to the heat. Workers were exposed to the moving parts of the machines while they worked. Children often had to move in between these dangerous machines while they worked because they were small enough to fit between the tightly packed machinery. This led to the kids being put in a great deal of danger, and the death rates were very high. Added to the dangers of the work was the length. It was common for workers to work 12 hours or more a day. Exhaustion made the worker sluggish, which made the workplace even more dangerous.
In England during the industrial revolution there was a lot of poverty and pollution, especially in the main towns where the mass unemployment and people often had to go into the work houses. The conditions that they were made to work in were overcrowded. There was no sanitation or anywhere to clean, and there was a large amount of pollution. These all led to diseases among the workers. Some of the jobs that the children were made to do were chimney sweeping or selling matches. Adults had to do bone crushing for fertilisers, working in kitchens and doing the laundry for rich people.
They would work sixty-hour weeks for ten cents an hour. The factories often worked in were cramped and dangerous. There have been many stories about tragic accidents occurring in these factories, such as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire that included child labor. As a result of this incident “141 young men and women, at least 125 of them mere girls, were burned to death or killed by jumping to the pavement below”. The fact that most of the people involved in this incident should’ve given a bad reputation to the factory owner during this time.
The children were treated impetuously by the factory owners. In “Child labor in Factories During the Industrial Revolution”, the text states, “the people who the children served would beat them, verbally abuse them, and take no consideration for their safety”. They would receive beatings and other harsh forms of being punished. For example, if they were late they would be “weighted” which meant they would tie a heavyweight around their neck and start walking up and down the factory. That punishment would lead to serious injuries in the neck and back.
In the past, the poor conditions and mistreatments had a negative impact on English textile factory workers, because they got sick, injured, and weren’t fed and cared for correctly. In the factories, the children worked long hours, the air wasn’t clean, the machines were dangerous, and it was filthy. In many of these, the workers worked for about ten to fifteen hours everyday; hours that no kid should ever have to work. The air inside the factories was highly contaminated and it was hot in there, so much that you had to gasp for air every couple of minutes in order to bear staying inside (Ward, 1819). The air affected the health by damaging the lungs, causing asthma, damaging other respiratory system parts, and could’ve caused cancer. In fact,
12-14 hours of work was common for children. Large, heavy, and dangerous equipment was very common to children to be near and use. Children working in theses factories would be treated terribly. The people the children worked for would beat them, verbally abuse them, and not care about their safety at all. Both girls and boys were subject to these harsh forms of pain infliction.
Child labor in early industrial work has become cruel and violent. Almost children were working in factory, which were harsh punishment and unhealthy, dangerous working conditions and inflexible work time. The work such as farming, cottage industries and house working has no longer received. However after James Watt has invented steam engine, things got worsted. The factory owner became to hire children from poor families to work in these factories.