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Child labor during the industrial revolution
Examine the social and economic impact of the industrial Revolution
Child labor during the industrial revolution
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Everyone is aware that the Industrial Revolution occurred during the 1830’s and has been more or less consistent since then. However, it seems the issues and the problems between then and now have shifted in a direction that is both beneficial yet harmful. In the 1830’s, the conditions were atrocious but manageable for most people, meaning that they were not deadly and were worth it, which allows for improvement. Also, for the 1830’s, things were packed very tightly on the factory floor and child labor laws were non-existent. In contrast, today, there are many cases of lack of benefits, poor quality of life, improper safety training, and gender and race discrimination. However, there are many intriguing and grand ideas that are deep within …show more content…
both sets of time periods, making them both positive and negative in their own ways. Back in the 1830’s, problems were constantly be created and hindered some progress within the Industrial Revolution.
The way items were produced was very primitive compared to 50 years later when the assembly line was introduced. It seemed that people truly could not think of ideas having to do with the concept of an assembly line. This slowness of thinking causes a lapse in production at the start in Britain. Another fault within the system was the absence of child labor laws. Children were forced into a life where they wake up, walk to the workplace, and work their hardest just to make ends meet in tangent with their parents. A example of a workplace was the classic coalmine. Children and men worked in coalmines and the tunnels in which they had to work were dark and extremely unsafe. These unsafe working conditions led …show more content…
to Baker 2 hundreds of injuries. Another aspect of Britain Industrial Revolution life was the tenement housing. Tenement housing, which was paid by the day rather than the month, had concerns with fresh air, sunlight, and proper nutrition. All these various issues eventually drove the mental state of the workers into a type of thinking that made them become very stagnant and unmotivated. All items considered, to a common person today, this life would seem impossible to even think about living, but for a common person back then, it would seem like a viable option because there was truly no other way to live and hope to succeed. Reading the above alone, it would suggest that the 1830’s provided no benefits and was abominable.
This is not the case at all. A big breakthrough during the 1830’s was the Factory act of 1833. This response from the government caused everyone to see the government as a more responsible group of individuals. A main law that was passed was, “Every child restricted to the performance of forty-eight hours of labor in any one-week shall attend some school.” This law prevented children from fully committing to working all the time and were the kind of first installment of official child labor laws. Another notable law was, “No person under eighteen years of age shall work between half-past eight in the evening and half-past five in the morning, in any cotton, woolen, worsted, hemp, flax, tow, linen or silk mill.” This law stated above helped kids
and Baker 3 teenagers get much needed sleep and also prevented them from overworking. Other laws and acts were passed throughout this time, but the Factory Act of 1833 was a true and actual lifesaver for the workers working at that time because it was a solution to the problems that had arisen in the first place. In contrast to all that, 2015 has brought a few issues as well, ones that can easily be compared to the ones in the 1830’s. In a recent Hartford Current article, one of the head people for a company, Parker Sykes, stated, “When you don’t have that timed work place, it is easy to get lackadaisical; companies find themselves drifting away from an optimum time.” This statement holds true when talking about nearly every job today. The advancement of machines have made it so that ordinary people working at these jobs do not have to focus as much as a common meat-factory worker in the 1830’s. Machines do all the work, which is more efficient but does not allow for more jobs for people, causing a slight by consistent/steady increase of unemployment. This unemployment then leads to even more botherations, which generates public uproar and rebellion because there are no jobs available. But ultimately, lackadaisicalness in the workplace is not even close to being safe and maintaining good health. The government is responsible for the safety and health of the workers as well as the main owners of the establishment that are being put into question. A clear-cut example of a lack of safety was the 2013 collapse of a textile factory in Bangladesh. There were extensive fire safety problems and the boiler Baker 4 and generator rooms held combustible materials that were not separated. Bangladesh is just one of the target countries to place blame on these sorts of problems on, but it realistically happens all around the globe, causing serious controversy today.
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.
During the time of the industrial revolution many people in society had either a hard or easy life. Some had to have their kids go to work so they could afford dinner. Others could sit back and watch children work for them. Also during this time the economy and the ecosystem were either in a good or bad state too. There was a lot of new ways to make money and lose money too. While that was happening there were many factories that caused a very bad amount of pollution. This ranged from drilling up oil to producing steel.
ccertain laws of exchange and production to be allowed to work freely in economic markets (Palmer et. al., 442).
In 1787 when delegates came together to work on a new Constitution for the United States of America, “the new nation was struggling to build a sovereign central state that respected regional autonomy and the competing rights claims of different individuals and groups, issues that had undermined the nations first operating system, the Confederation”(p.173). Little did we know that the eighteenth century was about to be a major turning point for the United States. This time in history is known as the Industrial Revolution. Before countries started becoming industrialized, anything humans needed to do required troublesome manual labor. Luckily, with this revolution, came new technologies and a change in the relationship between the people and their society.
Economic changes in the nineteenth century increased the number of European industrial workers dramatically and transformed the conditions where they lived and worked. The Industrial Revolution brought advances in machinery, economics, and technology. What some may not know was that the conditions that workers faced led to many arguments on how to improve their insalubrious living conditions, poor working conditions, and long hours of very low pay.
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
Industrial Revolution, which took place over much of the nineteenth century, had many advantages. It provided people with tools for a better life; people were no longer dependent on the land for all of their goods. The Industrial Revolution made it possible for people to control nature more than they ever had before. However, now people were dependent on the new machines of the Industrial Age (1). The Revolution brought with it radical changes in the textile and engine worlds; it was a time of reason and innovations. Although it was a time of progress, there were drawbacks to the headway made in the Industrial Revolution. Granted, it provided solutions to the problems of a world without industry. However, it also created problems with its mechanized inventions that provided new ways of killing. Ironically, there was much public faith in these innovations; however, these were the same inventions that killed so many and contributed to a massive loss of faith. These new inventions made their debut in the first world war (2) ).
The Industrial Revolution, with its radical innovations, creation of capital, and shift towards urbanization, also brought a plethora of issues for the common laborer. These issues, such as low wages, unbearable working conditions, and strenuous working hours were greatly protested by the working class, yet were unable to be resolved. However, it cannot be argued that this failure to create a resolution was largely due to the fact that American corporate leaders had implemented a successful strategy to suppress the cries of laborers; several other more significant reasons contributed to the failure of workers to adopt a powerful solution to overcome their situation. In addition to the minor reason that corporate leaders created powerful tactics
Some felt factory owners felt as though they were helping the poor by giving children money to buy food for themselves in order to prevent starvation, other factory owners just liked cheap. In 1833 and 1844, the first widespread laws against child labour, called the Factory Acts, were passed in Britain: Children below the age of nine were not permitted to work, children were not allowed to work at night, and the work day of children under the age of 18 was restricted to twelve hours. Factory inspectors oversaw that factory workers abided by the law, but the the execution of the law, however, the insufficiency made enforcement
Since the beginning of humankind, there were many events that helped the world, but the most important event of all is the industrial revolution which surely helped influence many countries all over the world, but most specifically Great Britain. The industrial revolution caused major changes in Britain, it helped improve farming and trade. It also helped influence Britain scientists and engineers into building many other machines that helped improve the country by making workers life easier. And even though it did go through some kind of negative effect, by the end the negative obstacles were fixed and Great Britain was 50 years ahead of the rest of the world.
Between the eighteenth and nineteenth century, Europe’s Industrial Revolution diminished the quality of life for the common person; the common person being the working class, who made up most of the population. Work options were limited to factories or poorhouses, and the working class in the factories struggled through terrible, unsafe working conditions, low wages and work hours lasting over ten hours a day, for six days a week. Children of the working class often had to work to help provide income to the family and went through even lower conditions and wages. Not only that, the Industrial Revolution had terrible health effects on the children and on the common people, because of the factories and the urban overcrowding.
The Industrial Revolution brought many changes both good and bad. Industrialization first began in Great Britain, which may have a lot to do with the many factors that were in their favor during that time. Many people living in rural areas were given new opportunities to grow their skills in different setting such as working in factories. This brought many curious minded people who did not have much else to lose to come to these areas and find an opportunity to live happily. However not many people expected the economy to grow as such and were not prepared to face the damage it would cause not only to the environment but the people as well living within those areas.
During the Industrial Revolution, the public addressed their problems by working to improve the way that the cities cares for their citizens and environment. The Industrial Revolution is a time of great change in America; as the nation grows and expands, problems do arise, along with solutions for them. The public would tire of these problems and look for ways to fix them on their own. To combat the problems, they focused on bettering the living conditions of the working class, making factories safer and cleaner places to work, and by promoting equality for all people. Altogether, the public worked hard to create a fair and honest country.
The Industrial Revolution refers to the major change that happened in the manufacturing process in the 18th century. These changes that covered many branches first appeared in Britain.
There were many factors that brought about child labor during the Industrial Revolution. One of its leading causes was the extensive poverty faces by many families. During this time, the average income for adults was very low and there was no minimum wage. Many parents felt like they had to choice but to send their children to work, in order to help put food on the table. A second cause of child labor was market demand. Employers often preferred to hire children because they were less costly than their adult counterparts and could be dispensed of easily if their need for workers decreased. In addition, employers did not have to worry about children forming groups to make more demands and protect themselves. A third determinant for child labor was the lack of educational opportunities. In many areas, there were no local schools within traveling distance. Also education was considered too costly and purposeless for many