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Child labor during the industrial revolution in Britain
Child labor during the industrial revolution in Britain
Industrialization impact on environment
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The Industrial Revolution began in England in the late 1700’s and was a time of new inventions, products, and methods of work. Sweatshops were active around that time. It was over populated and it caused good, but a lot of bad things for the people during that time. Manufacturing was often done in people's homes, using hand tools or basic machines. Industrialization marked a shift to powered, special-purpose machinery, factories and mass production. Also it was involved with child labor which was bad for children and drove them away from the education that they needed. The Industrial Revolution had a negative influence on the people lives during that time period because there was poor labor, Environment and atmospheric conditions from the …show more content…
“Children as young as five years of age labored in the textile and carpet factories, mines, glassworks, and garment-making sweatshops (Ross). The author, Stewart Ross, shows how the Industrial Revolution had a negative effect on young children who should be doing better than just working in farms and in factories etc. There were many reports of seven-year-old children being dragged out of bed at 5am and sent off to work in the mills until eight or nine o'clock at night (Ross). Children as young as seven are working long hours harvesting nicotine and pesticide laced tobacco leaves (Hindman). It is important to notice because children are working long hot hours on a farm with no protective gear, getting sick. Not only that, most of the children are not even in school getting the education they need. "Children interviewed by the group in 2012-2013 reported vomiting, nausea, and headaches while working on tobacco farms" (Smith). This is significant because they are all getting sick and not working in safe conditions. “Inside these factories one would find poorly ventilated, noisy, dirty, damp and poorly lighted working areas. These factories were unhealthy and dangerous places in which to work (P, Thompson). It is important to recognize how bad the work conditions were bad for the people and why it was one of the reasons of …show more content…
“Most pollution, however grew along with the Industrial Revolution, factories produced a myriad of waste material, from chemicals dumped in rivers to smoke belched into the sky from coal burning steam engines left over from the productions (sowards). Soward shows us examples on how the new factories drove off a lot of waste and chemicals to spread in the air which affected the people. “Drinking water infected with sewage killed around 140,000 people in Britain in four epidemics between 1831 and 1866 (Ross). This evidence shows that the factory and low sources was really affecting the people to the point of death. “In the space of only a few generations, huge areas of country sides were transformed from green fields and babbling streams into smoky towns full of roaring activity (Ross). The author, Stewart Ross, includes this piece of information to show us that the factories during Industrial Revolution caused these horrible
English textile factories were very bad for the health of the working class families. As Dr. Ward stated, “Last summer I visited three cotton factories with Dr. Clough of Preston and Mr. Barker of Manchester, and we could not remain ten minutes in the factory without gasping for breath...¨ This shows that the conditions were so bad that they had trouble breathing because how bad the air was. Dr. Ward also says, ¨Cotton factories are highly unfavourable, both to the health and morals of those employed in them. They are really nurseries of disease and vice. These factories were very unsafe and you could get many diseases and injuries, especially if you were a kid as a lot were. The kids were in many accidents in the factories, as Dr. Ward states,
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.
These comforts and conveniences included better and more developed homes, cheaper clothes, more tools and utensils to work with, and faster and cheaper travel. One of the most important concerns of this time period is the effect of child labor. Document 7 states: Large machines and rising demand for products quickly led to the growth of the factory system. The building of these factories led to the hiring of massive numbers of child workers, the youngest at 11 to 12 years old.
The Industrial Revolution was a fundamental change in the production of goods that altered the life of the working class. Similar to most other historical turning points, it had skeptics, or people that doubted the change, and fanatics, people who saw the value in the change being made. The Industrial Revolution and the period that followed shortly after highlight these varying opinions, as people were more conflicted than ever about the costs of industrialization. While Industrialization started in England as an attempt to capitalize on the good fortune they had struck, it quickly developed into a widespread phenomenon that made the product of goods more exact and controlled by higher level people. Many industries, such as the cotton and textile
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.
The kids under the age of fourteen were sent to go assist with the textile workers. They then would beat and verbally abuse the child. And if children would show up late, they would be weighted. Weighted means to put a very heavy weight on the child's back and have them walk up and down the factory aisles for hours, so other children can learn from it. This then resulted in back and neck injuries. (“Child Labor in Factories”) While this all seems really cruel, there were many positives that came out of child labor. Children were still able to contribute to their families. Money was a big struggle, and it had a major impact for poor families. Children were also getting a wide range of opportunities and work experiences for the future ahead. Although it might not be the best way to get experience, they were still helping out there families and showing respect towards them. This shows that during the Industrial Revolution, children were used harshly for labor, and the positives and negatives out of
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.
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.
The industrial revolution was in the late 1700s and early 1800s, it started in England and caused mass production. Certain impacts that were short term where the population boom, and urbanization. Most of the population was the working class and they worked in factories and mines and didn’t get a lot of pay. The industrial revolution resulted in the suffering of the working class in the short-term due to the inhuman working conditions and child labor.
Throughout history, children have always worked, either as apprentices or servants. However, child labor reached a whole new scale during the time period of the Industrial Revolution. Throughout the time frame of late 1800s-early 1900s, children worked long hours in dangerous factory conditions for very little wages. They were considered useful as laborers because their small stature allowed them to be cramped into smaller spaces, and they could be paid less for their services. Many worked to help support their families, and by doing so, they forwent their education. Numerous nineteenth century reformers and labor groups sought to restrict child labor and to improve working conditions.
Factory and mine owners exploited the situation by offering families a means to make more money, by putting their children to work. Industry profited from this arrangement by saving money, since child labor was more “cost effective”. According to one historian, Clark Nardinelli, “in 1835 56,000 children under the age of thirteen were working in textile factories alone. By 1874, the number of child laborers in the market hit its peak with over 122,000 children between the ages of 10 and thirteen working in textile factories (4).” ... ...
Simply, the working conditions were terrible during the Industrial Revolution. The workers used to do their work in a place where they washed their hands on their produced food. Even they worked in small places and so there were a lot of gathering around them. In document 2, Upton Sinclair published his “The Jungle” saying the working conditions of that time. In the document it says, “who had worked in the picked rooms, they could now study the whole of the spoiled meat industry on the inside”. It shows that the workers used to work in that type of place where they used to wash their hands, produce their products. Document 6 says, “…..to fix minimum standards of health and safety in industry……and to provide a living wage throughout industry….” This document reveals that the workers did not get their exact earnings. Bu for their safety and health, it was necessary to get paid well. Document 3 shows a data table where it says that in 1890, the number of child labor was higher than the number of in 1920. So child labor was at a high rate in 1900s. But now it is in control. In the late of 1800s and 1900s, the working conditions were really bad. Employers were not entitled to vacation, sick leave, unemployment compensation, or reimbursement for injuries suffered to try to improve their lot. They had to perform repetitive, mind dulling tasks, sometimes with dangerous or faulty
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.
Christopher Hibbert’s The English: A Social History, 1066-1945, harshly reflects child labor. The author uses graphic details to portray the horrible work environment that the children, sometimes as young as four and five, were forced to work in. Hibbert discusses in much detail the conditions the children work in, the way they are mistreated, and what was done to prevent child labor.
“Child labor is work that harms children or keeps them from attending school.” Back then in the U.S., children were working between ages 5 to 17. Between the 1800s and 1900s, many children worked in agricultural fields, fishing, mining, manufacturing, and even drug trade and prostitution. Even though child labor laws are still avoided around the world, the effects on child labor in the US, before, was unbelieveable. Children were suffering from health issues, reform movements grew and other countries followed enforced child labor too.