Child Labor In The 1900's

Child labor was a huge issue in the late 1800’s to the 1900’s. Children often worked through unfair, unhealthy, and unsafe. Children often worked hard for little pay. The children often contracted diseases and lost arms, hands and fingers in accidents and even died sometimes. Young workers had dangerous jobs like working in the coal mines. Kids during the 1820’s through 1920’s went on strike because working conditions were unhealthy, unfair and unsafe.
Conditions in the spinning-room textile mills in Lowell, Massachusetts were extremely unhealthy. Workers often suffered hearing loss or other diseases primarily of the lungs due to the loud noise the many looms made and the cotton fiber they were breathing in. The text states “ “Tremendous noise

Messenger boys sometimes never got paid,The Messenger boys would go to where the message was to be delivered and if the person was not found or declined the message the boys did not get paid. The owners did not really care or want to pay the messenger boys, they wanted the money for themselves. The text states “To them, it was not fair to lose payment on messages just because the person addressed could not be found or refused to accept the message.”( page 44) This symbolizes the unfair situation the Messenger boys had to work through. The owners did not want to pay the Messenger boys, the owners were probably really happy when the message was not delivered. At this time there were no labor laws, so the boys had no rights to protect them from unfair policies such as delivering a message and not getting paid. The messenger boys were not the only boys under unfair treatment. The Bootblacks and the Newsies were both in the same situation. The Bootblacks mainly hated the cash registers. The text states”the boys resented that their honesty was being questioned. They hated the cash register and its bell.” ( page 46-47 )The boys had to pay their boss sixty cents of each dollar the boys made. One Bootblack stated “The boss, he make all the money, and he want to make the men ring up the shine like the monkey rings the bell in the circus”.(page 47 )

Everyday the mine workers went to work knowing that they or one of their co-workers might die. The mine workers could die from many different causes, such as, explosions and roof collapses. The text states “on the average, nearly one mine worker was killed each day from a roof fall, an explosion, or other accident.”(page 92 ) Spraggers had a very dangerous job, they had to jab wooden sprags into the wheel, to the slow the cars down. The text states “Spraggers lost fingers, hands or legs in accidents.”(page 94 ) This shows very unsafe work environment, resulting in a death per day. The explosions were caused from poor ventilation and the hot air under ground created pressure, which caused a methane gas explosion. People dying at work was not uncommon for a long time until the labor laws helped prevent work injuries and death. Today if someone dies at work they were probably murdered, not accident. Labor laws created safe work environments that we still benefit from