Francis Truncale USSO 10100 While child labor has existed for much of America’s history, it is not until the industrial revolution, where changes in perception of childhood and adolescence took place, that it is seen as a social problem; combined with deplorable working conditions, this led to reforms that were seen as necessary for the welfare of children. To understand this, it is important to know the typical lives of children in preindustrial society. Prior to the industrial revolution, children were employed without social backlash. In preindustrial society, the household was the center of production and consumption. As a result, children worked within the household or on a family farm at this time . At this time, children received their education in the home from their parents. Children’s work was integrated with their education, changing with the seasons . However, this does not evoke the same negative thoughts as with factory work. In advanced industrial society, production is separated from consumption, therefore, out of the household. Production becomes a marketable item, which makes labor a commodity . When child labor is treated as a commodity, rather than a parent-controlled entryway to adulthood, problems …show more content…
According to the Children’s Bureau, though law prohibited children under 14 from working in factories, they did factory work at home . Minors under 16 did overtime work at home, which was used to get around the legal limited hours of work. Poor lighting conditions in the home led to children straining their eyes, developing sores, callouses, blisters, cuts, and bruises. Children injured in home work were not entitled to workmen’s compensation. Additionally, teachers complained of children coming to school tired due to the home work, which led to one-tenth of 9-13 year old students receiving school grades that were 2 or more years below the average
At this time in history, there were “two million children under the age of sixteen” working to provide for their families, and some kids beginning labor at the tender ages of “six and seven years (in the cotton
Tuttle,Carolyn. Edited: Robert Whaples “ Child labor during the British industrial revolution.” .EH.Net Encyclopedia. August 14, 2001.
A male factory employee familiar with his female coworkers noted that many women still had children at a young age, during their teenage years (Doc 4). Women also tended to have a large number of children, common when peasants worked on farms and needed as many bodies to help tend to the animals as they could get. However, since women now worked in an urban setting outside of the home, conflicts arose when they needed to care for young children. This led to small children being brought to work with their mothers, although this usually occurred with women working in fields, not factories, given the harmful environment of the factories (Doc 1). While women worked outside of the home and earned money for themselves and their families during the Industrial Revolution, they continued to have several children, and act as the prime caregiver, as they had prior to the
During the Industrial Revolution in the United States, labor laws regarding safety and the age of children who could work were non-existent. Unlike today, in a time where strict laws regarding the use of child labor are regarded and respected, during the times of early Industrialism, children worked alongside their parents in an effort to help their families economically. With the turn of the twentieth century came new ideas of the Progressive Era, which forever changed the laws surrounding the use of children in factories and other labor-intensive occupations. However, the struggle behind the efforts to change child labor laws was a long one. With events such as the Newsboy Strike in New York in 1899 to the creation of the Fair Labor Standards
Many parents needed their wages to make ends meet. In Document C from The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets by Jane Adams 1909, Jane states how children enter factory life when the law allows them to, and children end up not having childhoods. She writes that people are so caught up with the marvelous achievements of their industry and end up forgetting the children who have to work to help out as well. In Document G, a court case Hammer v. Dagenhart 1918, the father of two sons one under fourteen years old and another one between fourteen and sixteen explains his concern about the exploitation of his children in a cotton mill. He says its concerning that children are allowed to work more than eight hours a day and six days a week.
“Child labor and poverty are inevitably bound together and if you continue to use the labor of children as the treatment for the social disease of poverty, you will have both poverty and child labor to the end of time” (Grace Abbott). The issue of child labor has been around for centuries. Its standing in our world has been irrevocably stained in our history and unfortunately, our present. Many great minds have assessed this horrific issue and its effect on our homes, societies, and ultimately, our world.
Not only the meat packing industry, the overall factory environment in the early 1900s was depressing. Child labor was common. As Jame Adams observed in 1909, “thousands of the city youth will enter factory life at an early age as early as the state law will permit” (Doc. C). Implying her dissatisfaction toward the state action, she had pointed out one national issue for people to consider―child labor.
As the rate of industrialization in America grew during the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, child labor became more and more common. The rapid growth of the economy and the vast amounts of poor immigrants during the Industrial Age in America justified the work of children as young as the age of three. By 1900, over two million children were employed. However, the risks of involving child labor greatly outweighed the positives; child labor was inhumane, cruel, and caused physical deformities among children. Children typically worked in coal mines, mills, and factories which contained many life-threatening hazards.
Child labor during the 18th and 19th century did not only rapidly develop an industrial revolution, but it also created a situation of difficulty and abuse by depriving children of edjucation, good physical health, and the proper emotional wellness and stability. In the late 1700 's and early 1800 's, power-driven machines replaced hand labor for making most manufactured items. Many of America 's factories needed a numerous amount of workers for a cheap salary. Because of this, the amount of child laborers have been growing rapidly over the early 1800s.
Almost 250 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are working in developing countries like Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Egypt, etc. Unfortunately these countries still allow child labor forcing children to work rather than getting their education. Although in Egypt, most of them are based on case studies or cover a sub-national area. The main reasons of child labor in Egypt are poverty and escaping education. To begin
In 1975, when the Industrial Revolution came to the United States, families frantically sent their children to work in the fields to gain enough money for their families. Children today
The term "child labor" has become associated with the use of children in organized employment settings in fields such as the trades, manufacturing, agriculture, or domestic work. In most cases, children who work for paid employment do so out of economic necessity. Child labor was commonplace in the household, and children were routinely sent away to serve as apprentices and domestic labor for wages at ages as young as eight or nine in many cultures. Modern objections to child labor began within a few decades after the Industrial Revolution took hold in Great Britain. Critics of child labor in the nineteenth century charged that children took jobs from men, who needed the wages to support their families.
Child Labor Laws “Child labor and poverty are inevitably bound together and if you continue to use the labor of children as the treatment for the social disease of poverty, you will have both poverty and child labor to the end of time.” This quote by Grace Abbott explains why we need to stand up against child labor. Although many people think that children these days need to work more and have life handed to them, this was not always the case. Children during the industrial revolution were being forced to work long hours in terrible conditions with little to no pay.
The causes of child labor are complex which includes poverty, cultural circumstances, and values, results must be broad and involve the most extensive potential assortment of partners in each culture. Immediate action is needed to be taken to eliminate this hazardous issue. People must come together to and implement laws and regulations to solve this problematic
But not all work done by children should be accepted as child labor. In other words, if a work doesn’t harm child’s health or personal development (educational issues), it is generally accepted as something positive and useful. Such activities develop children’s skills, provide experience and formulate them to be part of society. The term “Child Labor” is when children do work that damages their health or hamper mental or physical