n Nm n

n Nm n

CHILD LABOR


By: Vishal Greene
Class: 11-07 History

        Many families were so poor during the Industrial Revolution time period that they had to send their children to work also. Women and children made very low wages compared to men and child labor was at its peak during this time. The youngest children in the textile factories were usually employed as scavengers and piercers. Children at the age of five and six would work sometimes up to eighteen hours a day under dangerous conditions at factories. The factory conditions were very poor and made it extremely difficult for everyone to work.
    Children sometimes worked up to 19 hours a day, with a one-hour total break. This was a little bit on the extreme, but it was not common for children who worked in factories to work 12-14 hours with the same breaks. Not only were these children forced into long hours, but also, they were in horrible conditions. Large, heavy, and dangerous equipment was very common for children to be using or working near. Many accidents occurred injuring or killing children on the job. The Factory Act of 1833 improved many things like, children getting paid only a fraction of what an adult would get, and sometimes factory owners would get away with paying them nothing.
        There were people in this time period that advocated the use of child labor, or at least the improvement of conditions. Factory owners loved child labor, and they supported their reasoning with ideas that it was good for everything from the economy to the building of the children's moral characters. Parents of the children who worked were almost forced to at least approve of it because they needed the income. There were, however, some important figures that fought for the abolishment of child labor. The first step to improving conditions was in 1833 with the Factory Act passed by Parliament. This limited the amount of hours children of certain ages could work. Specifically, children 9 to 13 years of...