Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The advantages of child labour
Child labour and its effect on kids
Child labour industrial revolution
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: The advantages of child labour
Child Labor Key words:
Child Labor - Using Child as a worker
Industrial Revolution - The development of Industry
Before Industrial Revolution happens, children’s were working such as in fields, in house and cottage industries under parents. They helped the family to get more income and children also learned many skills. However as Industrial Revolution begins, it changed this system. Pre Industrial Jobs Children were working under parents before Industrial Jobs. The children whose parents are farmers, they worked in take caring of animals or planting seeds in fields, pulling weeds and picking crops. Children who worked at homes were apprentices in family business. As children working as apprentices, they work with their master. After they get trained and they are fairly skilled, than they work as journeymen. After that, they could start their own business. However in 1788, to improve children working system, they made a law called “climbing boys”. This is, when children first came in family business, children received a low wage. Such as cleaning, cooking, caring children and etc. The
…show more content…
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. They worked in preparing and spinning cotton, silk and other.
http://www.galenet.com/servlet/SRC/;Children working in factory; Retrieved Nov.20.14
The Debate of Child
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
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.
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
Similarly, the change towards a factory-oriented nation was a harsh one for the industrialists. Many of the adult labor force had no training in how to use the machines and took awhile to pick up the new techniques (Basu and Van, 1998). It was more time consuming and costly to teach the adults than it was to hire children during the start of the revolution. Children could be molded into the ideal adult worker as they rose through the ranks in the factory. Studies indicate that about 50% of workers started working in the factories when they were less than ten years of age, from this overall amount 28% of these child workers started working when they were under the age of fourteen, while only 7.8% of workers started working in the textiles from the age of twenty- one or higher (Nardinelli, 1980).
In the agricultural industry the children would harvest crops and sewing. If the children were working in the mining industry it was very dangerous. The conditions were very poor, it was very dirty and not pleasant. The boys were called “Breaker Boys” they broke down raw coal into different pieces for certain furnaces. The coal bearers would carry coal on their shoulders, and the smallest children worked as trappers, they would open trap doors in the mines to move the coal. As for the manufacturing industry, the children would work in dark and dirty conditions. They worked around sharp tools and and machines, which caused a lot of injuries to them.
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.
In the late 1700’s and early 1800’s big business began to boom. For the first time companies were developing large factories to manufacture their goods. Due to the new mechanics and cheap labor, factory owners could now produce their goods at a cheaper rate. As big businesses brought wealth and capitalism, it also widened the gap between the wealthy elite and the poor. One class in particular was horribly affected by the growth of big factories. This class was the poor working class. According to the article “Child Labor in the United States” written by Robert Whaples, a big proportion of the labour work force was made up of children: “In 1820 children aged 15 and under made up 23 percent of the manufacturing labor force of the industrializing
At the beginning of the 1800’s most laborers worked at home. The family functioned together as a working unit for the common good of all its members. Children would stay at home to help until they got married. They usually did not become contributing members until they reached the age of ten. Girls started somewhat earlier because they would be assisting their mothers with the domestic economy(Gaskell, 91).
"Child Labor during the British Industrial Revolution." EHnet. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Dec. 2017. (-- removed HTML --) .
Many factories and mines hired children, because they were able to fit in smaller spaces and the factories could pay them less. They also hired children, because children were easier to control. During this time it was just common for kids to work; most people were okay with child labor at the time. “In colonial America, child labor was not a subject of controversy. It was an integral part of the agricultural and handicraft economy. Children not only worked on the family farm but were often hired out to other farmers
Before considering the reasons for and impact of child labour, it is necessary to provide a brief overview of the Industrial Revolution in England. The 14th century saw England shift from an exporter of raw wool to manufacturer of quality woollen textiles. The two main events that took place, which allowed this to happen were: the Hundred Years’ War and Bubonic plague. The Hundred Years’ War was a battle between the English and French, which, began in 1337. During the war, King Edward III of England created a wool monopoly in an attempt to raise funds to help support the war effort. This was achieved by taxing the export of wool to Flanders and the Low Countries. As a result, the production of woollen textiles decreased, and provided England the opportunity to capitalize on the shortage. It was also during this time the Bubonic plague struck Europe killing somewhere between a third to a half of the population. The effects of the plague were devastating for the most part, but...
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.
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.
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 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.