The late 19th century is commonly referred to as the “Gilded Age”. A time of luxury and success, for some at least. For others, this was a time of struggle, hard work, and new beginnings. Child-workers are one group that did not experience the so-called “luxury” of this epoch. Our story begins with a poor child-worker named Arabella, or Bella. Bella was 11 years old and she lived in the slums of New York with her mother and seven younger siblings. Her father had recently died from an injury he received during the Civil War and her mother was deathly ill. Since she was the oldest of her siblings, it was her responsibility to provide for her family. She worked at a textile factory on the other side of town. At that factory, she worked 18 hours …show more content…
She walked through the cold metal doors and up the stairs to the fifth floor. With each step she took, her body shivered about one million times, for the inside was no warmer than the outside. Once she got up to the fifth floor, she heard a blood-curling scream. “BELLLLLLAAAAAA!” the floor manager shouted. “You are late!” he said, as he got closer and closer to her face. “There is no excuse for that, even for a piece of scum like you,” he told her. He then gave her the worst ad possibly the most dangerous position on the floor – the machine …show more content…
She had some minor burns and singed hair, not that the manager cared. All the manger cared about was production, and well this was not productive. He picked her up by her shirt, threw her out in the snow, and screamed “YOU’RE FIRED YOU INCOMPETENT SCUMBAG!” Bella then picked herself up, and walked home. On her way home, she found a newspaper on the ground and she took it. When she got to her home, she looked through the newspaper for job openings. She decided that tomorrow she would go out and beg for jobs. Although for now, she did not have much time to look for jobs because she had to fix dinner for her family. The family of nine shared one serving of boiled cabbage. After dinner, if you could even call it that, Bella tucked everyone into bed. She then laid down on the cold floor in her dirty ragged clothes and whispered to herself, “Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.” The life of a child-worker, as shown by Bella, is difficult. There is hardship. There is Struggle. There is pain. While other children get to experience the joy of childhood, child-workers must mature very quickly in order to provide for themselves and their family. They work hard and receive very little in return. However, people like Bella must continue through
Work is required to earn the money to provide the necessities of life, but this duty should never be given to children. In her speech, Florence Kelley uses logos, pathos, and a shift to voting rights to build her argument of why child labor laws need to be enforced nationwide. The first way the author builds her argument is through logos, a logical appeal. Kelley utilizes an assailment of facts and statistics to lead her assertion. This is effective because of the shockingly large number of children working absurd and miserable hours.
Through this rhetorical strategy Kelley is trying to encourage readers and her audience to support regulations for child labor. If they fight together then more regulations will be enforced, eventually ending child labor. The effect of this strategy was placing the idea that many children would be working just to survive while these people are sleeping carefree. To achieve their survival they had to work late, riks their lives daily, and work in perilous
Mary Harris was desperate to get the conditions of child labor publicised, she asked almost every news paper and know one would. “Well, I’ve got stock in these little children and I’ll arrange a little publicity,” is how she responded. She showed no fear to show the whole world how child labor negatively affected children both mentally and physically. When the march finally began it consisted of an “army” of children, and accompanied by a few men and women
It starts out by the author explaining her cousins houses, “Dishes are piled high in he sink”. This helps us understand that the job is taking up a lot free time. Then the author makes the remark “I thought this was for twelve hours, not twelve days”. This helps us understand how time consuming the job is. “Do you think you can handle an all-nighter?”, also shows us how long the shifts are.
“It was the age of confidence. Arrogance was epidemic.” (Laskin, The Children’s Blizzard.) In William Dean Howells’ elaborate novel, The Rise of Silas Lapham, we follow Silas Lapham, a newly rich business man who accumulated his wealth in America during the Gilded Age. Throughout the story, Lapham experiences a rise-fall-rise as the founder of a paint business coming from a humble background.
Child Labor Analysis Child Labor was one of Florence Kelley’s main topics at a speech she gave in Philadelphia during a convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Kelley talks about all the horrors children were going through and the injustices they were suffering. She talks of the conditions children working in, the hours they were going in, and all in all, how wrong child labor was. Her purpose for this was to gain support of people to petition for the end of child labor. Kelley’s appeals to Ethos, Pathos and Logos through the use of great rhetoric is what allows her to achieve her purpose.
During the Gilded age era, America became more affluent and saw unmatched progress both industrially and technologically. Coming with this was the counter as well that consisted of greed, corruption, and politicians being advantageous of the working class. The decade of the twenties, which is deemed as the roaring 20s was an era that pioneered innovation. It also marked social and political change both positively and negatively. It’s safe to that the roaring 20s is comparable and representative of the gilded age, given that both time periods marked prosperity but social conflict(s); The twenties were the new gilded age.
Politics in the Gilded Age were no more corrupt than at any other era in American political history, but it is viewed as one of the more corrupt periods in our history. There are several reasons for this and chief among them is that historians have traditionally interpreted the era that way. When studying primary sources of Gilded Age politics, especially newspapers, it becomes apparent that most were harsh toward politicians on both sides of the spectrum. The reason for this is that newspapers were extremely loyal to one party or the other and sought to paint the other side as vile, corrupt, and without morals. Charges were made based on little or no real evidence which made the era appear more corrupt than it really was.
Background The Economy of United States grown significantly in terms of the number, size and influence in the world trade market. This was the period when the American society went through many changes and new social and economic processes have changed the organization of American society. Mark Twain an observer of Eighteen century have given a name Gilded Age as period in which wealthiest Americans were benefited by the government reforms and policies.
Imagine working sixteen hours a day in an unsanitary, dangerous, place for a big business gaining two dollars. This is what laboring-class Americans had to go through during the Gilded age. Politically, the first largest American labor union was formed during the Gilded age and many other organizations formed as well as violent strikes. Socially, different ethnics joined together to share their thoughts and realize the evils of big business and of the federal government. Mentally, most we 're losing their personal life while some were financially stable and glad.
The Gilded Age, the period of the history of the United States from the Reconstruction to the early 20th century, witnessed the development of industrialization, urbanization, the construction of great transcontinental railroads, innovations in science and technology, and the rise of big business. There were many capable leaders who were building a better future. Vanderbilt stopped at nothing to connect the nation via railroads. Rockefeller used his trademark ruthlessness to establish his oil empire. Cities were expending to the sky, this was built on the strength of Andrew Carnegie’s steel.
The Gilded Age lasted from 1870 to World War 1, “1900s.” The Gilded Age was a period of fast economic development, but also much social struggle. Mark Twain in the late nineteenth century founded the “Gilded” Age, which means covered with gold on the outside, but not really golden on the inside, for example, tin. This period of time was glittering on the surface but corrupt underneath. In other words, the outside looked beautiful, but the inside looked old and trashy.
Desperate for money, she worked 12-hour days, six days a week. First she worked as a cook, then in a nail salon. To this day she still feels
The news of Tempie’s death shook Ella greatly. Shortly following her mother’s death, Ella was taken in by Tempie’s sister Virginia. After moving, Ella had a hard time adjusting to her new surroundings and became unhappy eventually starting to skip school frequently thus causing her grades to drop. It was at this time that she got into trouble with the police and was sent to a reform school. However, things got even worse for Ella while she was in the reform school as she often suffered beatings from those in charge.
Child labor was a great concern in the Industrial revolution but very few people did something to stop it. Women and Children were forced to work more than 10 hours a day with only forty minutes to have lunch. Elizabeth Bentley once said that they didn’t have any time to have breakfast or drink anything during the day. They worked standing up and if they didn’t do their work on time they were strapped (whipped). Children were treating like they were not important, like they didn’t deserve a better life.