The History Behind Child Labor
The Industrial Revolution began its change in America when work developed from hand production to the use of machinery. With the growth of technology came the growth of efficiency, leaving company owners altogether more ambitious about getting work done. America began to lose its freshly established freedom glow, and was replaced with a country of hungry adversaries. Factory holders searched for the cheapest and most beneficial ways to get things done, and found their answer in the hands of innocent children.
Instead of hiring unemployed adults, company owners hired children as young as six. Because of the new technology, adult strength wasn't needed to operate machines and could be done for less pay by kids. They performed jobs such as tending spinning mills or hauling heavy loads, sometimes even working in the dark coal mines. Furthermore, kids could work at a faster rate. For example, in textile jobs, doffers would quickly exchange an empty spool in the spinning machine with a full one. Young, small boys could switch spools fast and easily climb to the tops of the machines where more spools were.
Additionally, the jobs were extremely dangerous, often causing kids to suffer horrible injuries such as the loss of limbs or death. In a case in Massachusetts, a girl's hair got caught in a spinning textile mill and her scalp was ripped off. |
"In other words, the child is a creature of environment, of opportunity, as children are everywhere. And the environment here has been bad, as it was and is in the lands across the sea that sent him to us. "
-Children of the Poor (page 4), Jacob Riis
-Children of the Poor (page 4), Jacob Riis
Working long, difficult hours of 50-70 per week also led to injury and poor health conditions for children. Laborers were frequently exposed to harmful chemicals in their work environments. For example, many child farm laborers inhaled and ingested DDT which was sprayed on the crops they were harvesting day after day. Today, we now understand a child’s long term quality of life was devastatingly affected by these chemical exposures. |
Additionally, children’s right to education was being taken away through the time they spent working. America was turning into a non-educated nation that put the generations to come down the same, twisted path.