Mother Jones: The Harmful Effects Of Child Labor

According to Mother Jones, child labor was something so miserable and heart tearing. Mother Jones states, “Tiny babies of six years old with faces of sixty did an eight-hour shift for ten cents a day”. She witnessed all these poor children work every day and go home exhausted and drained. They had to work in horrible conditions, managers had no sympathy for the poor little children some would get hurt and others would die from illnesses. Jones states, “Often their hands were crushed. A finger was snapped off. They die of pneumonia, these little ones, - bronchitis and consumption.” These poor little kids were stripped from their childhood instead of playing they worked to help their family. According to Mother Jones the people responsible for

Some men worked with knives, sharp items, chemicals just depended in which area you worked in and what your job was. They worked in horrible and unsanitary conditions and in an unsafe environment. Due to this there were many injuries and many lost limbs. Also they were surrounded by diseases like tuberculosis. Sinclair states, “The hands of these men would be crisscrossed with cuts, until you could no longer pretend to count them or to trace them. They would have no nails; —they had worn them off pulling hides; their knuckles were swollen so that their fingers spread out like a fan”. These workers pretty much risked their lives each day they showed up to work. This job was more of a torture place rather than a job. Sinclair states, “There were the beef-luggers, who carried two-hundred-pound quarters into the refrigerator-cars; a fearful kind of work, that began at four o’clock in the morning, and that wore out the most powerful men in a few years”. What similarities and differences can we see between these two different jobs and labor forces? Some similarities in between these two different jobs and labor forces were the horrible conditions they worked in and all the injuries that many workers suffered. Mother Jones tells us that many children lost fingers and their hands were crushed similar to the immigrants who would hurt their hands which were full of cuts. Both the children and immigrants appeared old and worn out from working so hard and in such horrible