The Negative Impact of Industrialization on Children in Mahew's The Watercress Girl

The Negative Impact of Industrialization on Children in Mahew's The Watercress Girl

The age of Industrialization brought about many enlightening changes to urban society. The technical innovations of the machine age and the inventions of mass transit (railroad) brought people in droves to the cities, forcing crowded unsanitary conditions. The increased need for workers put women and children into the workforce, providing cheap labor, but resulting in inhumane working conditions and "some of the worst evils of the factory system, [in which] workers, including children, toiled for up to sixteen hours a day, six days a week, under inhuman conditions: deafening noise, poor ventilation, dangerous machinery..." (Longman, p. 1818). Even though the industrial revolution brought about more jobs, "periodic economic depressions resulted in unemployment." (Longman, p. 1819)

The suffering of the children was by far the worst of society's ills. Henry Mahew's four volume "London Labour and the London Poor" (1851) depicts the plight of the common people in the aftermath of the industrialization of London's society. He interviewed hundreds of London's poor and gave voice to the forgotten workers, particularly the children, who earned meager subsistence from "hawking goods, begging, performing, and providing various services, from running errands to prostitution." (Longman, p. 1838)

"The Watercress Girl" is an account from Henry Mahew's four volume works. It symbolizes the harsh reality of child labor and the pathetic conditions in which many of the poor lived. The watercress girl, as many of the urban poor children, had lived in her short life such conditions as to virtually have no childhood. She skipped those years and went straight into womanhood, by virtue of all that she had done and seen, "..although only eight years of age, had entirely lost all childish ways, and was, indeed, in thoughts and manner, a woman." (Longman, p. 1838) Other references indicate that she was far beyond her years, that the life she had led thus far had aged her considerably, "her little face, pale and thin with privation, was wrinkled where the dimples ought to have been, and she would sigh frequently." (Longman, p. 1838)

The children of this time did not have the leisure to enjoy their youth. Hard times, starvation, crowded conditions prevented children from their inherent right to youth. Frequently, children too young to work in the factories took care of even younger children, "before that, I had to take care of a baby for my aunt.