Child Labor During The Industrial Revolution

The Industrial revolution contributed to better living conditions and better economic status. It sparked many cultural, social, and economic changes throughout the United States and Europe from the 18th to the 19th century. Vital inventions that contributed to modern technology can be seen emerging like the steam engine, light bulb, and the telegraph. More jobs opened up for the poor helping the economy boom, and living conditions overall were improved. The industrial revolution had a good effect on the typical worker at this time.

Child Labor in the Early 1900's There was a time in America when it was common for children to be working intense amounts in the factories of the labor industry. By 1904, 50,000 workers in the South were under the age of 16 with 20,000 under the age of 12. Having children working in the industry was dangerous and unreasonable and resulted in countless accidents in the workspace. In the early 1900's, children who worked in the labor industry were exploited as they were forced to work long hours, were deprived of an education, and ultimately put their lives at risk until The National Child Labor Committee began advocating for reform.

While there were dreadful effects of the Revolution, the three main results were overpopulated cities, women's struggles, and child labor. Overpopulation was one of the many problems due to the Industrial Revolution. As the number of people increased, there were less and less

According to NPR, “About half worked on family farms. The rest did everything else, working in factories, trained as apprentices, and served as messengers”. Also working non stop for long hours made children prone to physical and mental disorders. Working had affected children's health, education, and their childhood. Children didn’t have a childhood, they basically skipped their childhood and went right to work instead.

The people of the Industrial revolution brought many financial and working changes within the war (History Channel: Industrial Revolution). In which the lower class worked and lived in horrible conditions while the upper class had better authority (History channel Show: Industrial Revolution). They had to work for long hours and hardly got paid, that brought them to a situation where they started having their kids work (Children Who Built Victorian Britain). There was no amount of modern or fiscal progress that could advocated the price of a human

Child labor began in the late 1700s and in the early 1800s. During this time, the industrial revolution brought difficulties to the people. Children were hired in factories, coal mines and many other unsafe places. Children were hired because they could pay them less, worked hard, and could do jobs adults couldn’t. Some Americans were in poverty causing their children to work otherwise they wouldn't survive.

The Industrialization had bloom during the late 1800s early 1900s. This big growth was a positive and negative impact in the United States history. This began the devastating practice of child labor. Children would work in factories for very long hours be paid very low wages or not even be paid. According to Harold Goldstein, ‘’it had been accepted as a norm, employment of young children gradually came to be viewed as harmful and exploitative in the United States.’’

Child Labor is the practice of hiring children to work in factories or other professions. Child Labor Laws in the United States address issues related to the employment and welfare of working minors and children in the U.S. Many of these children often came from poor families and were immigrants or orphans. A various amount of owners chose to employ children because they could be paid less than adults and were smaller so that they could fit between machines or even inside when the machinery needed to be clean, they were dirty and sometime very dangerous. Being forced to work was hard for children to possess an education.

Children got paid less than adults and they were easier to manage and control. Child labor made up about 20% of the workforce. They worked about 12 hours a day, six days week with a weekly wage of one dollar. Children who were 5 years old or younger were paid less than one dollar. Those children were very helpful in some jobs, because of the size they were able to and move in small places where adults can’t fit.

Many children lost their childhoods because of the Industrial Revolution and all of the working that they had to do (Reed). While in the world today there is freedom from working and laws that protected the world, and during the Industrial Revolution children didn’t have decisions to make. They were sometimes forced to work and working took away from their childhoods. Some children weren’t forced to work but had to work in order to help their families with their incomes and working contributed to children’s lives being lost as well. The number of child laboring children has decreased dramatically and is becoming smaller and smaller today (Child labor).

Why was child labour an issue during the Industrial Revolution? During the Industrial Revolution, various factories required large amounts of labour for simple task, like pushing some buttons on a machine or maintaining certain machines. With factories not willing to pay highly qualified individuals, this led to the mass consumption of cheap labour being utilised. Factories shifted from hiring men who were highly qualified in their role to children and women, who were given simple instructions they had to carry out. Among other benefits factory owners decided to hire kids for various reasons, some include: lack of authority ( cant unionise), willingness to take any pay (underpay them) and because of their small and nimble size compared to

The main advantage of children is their size, they can fit every where adults can not, such as small places in factories and mines. That was one of the reasons why so many children were working during that time. At the beginning of the 20th century, there was a huge economic, political and social crisis. Unemployment was at its highest so people wanted the job to go to unemployed adults rather than children.

Child labor was a great problem in the Industrial Revolution. Factory owners usually hired women and children rather than men. They said that men expected higher wages, and they suspected that they were more likely to rebel against the company. Women and children were forced to work from six in the morning to seven at night, and this was when they were not so busy. They were forced to arrive on time and they couldn’t fall behind with their work because if they did they were whipped and punished.

In 18th century Britain started a new revolution, the machines made products are quickly replacing the the hand-made products. The faster production line pushed production of factory system to an edge, and around about tens of thousands of farmers, independent artisans, handicraft workshop workers, lost their job which made their next generation became child laborers. The machine factories needed small children more than men are because for some processes in the production line the factory needed little flexible fingers and tiny bodies which is what children have. The children are obedient towards every task you give also have less income than adults, so the factories are more likely to employ children.

The industrial revolution created an age of wonder for the rich but also created a nightmare for the workers powering the industrial revolution. The period of rapid industrial growth during the 1800s and into the early 1900s was more harmful because of poor working conditions, violent labor disputes and poor regulations at factories. The businessmen of the industrial revolution created poor working conditions for men and women just