Did you know, In the late 1800s and early 1900s, about 18 percent of all American workers were under the age of 16? Child labor started in the late 1700s and early 1800s, around the start of the American Industrial Revolution when many families had to find someone to work or their family may not have survived. This became the time when children were exposed to harsh conditions in the factories that they were forced to work in, brutal treatment in the workplace and constant long hours of tough labor starting at the very young age of 4 years old where they had no control or choice over any changes. In the late 1800s and early 1900s child labor was finally being seen as a problem and something needed to be done. Child labor became a huge controversial problem and it is easiest to explore the many different ways in which child labor impacted society.
First, it was common to see children working alongside a parent or guardian in an agricultural setting. The young boys would help their fathers in farming the land and keeping livestock. They would also help in different kinds of workshops depending on what the family business consisted of. Young females would often help their mothers around the house with the cooking, cleaning, sewing and other “feminine” jobs. Often young girls would be sent to an upper-class home to clean and cook for someone else to help support their families. Without children working to help maintain a regular income for their families, they would just fall deeper into poverty.
When America moved into their industrial revolution, work began to change for the nation, especially the child work force. Parents were forced to send their children into these factory labor forces, due to the lack of income. Children were what you could consider “little adults”. Children were actually preferred for some jobs over adults for various reason, such as being able to fit in smaller places to where a grown person could not, or simply because children were easier to control, because they were not mentally grown. “Therefore, the factory owners hired children because they were easier to control and more likely to accept punishment. Whereas, an adult made have resisted or fought back,”[footnoteRef:1] this was considered a control issue that factory owners knew they could not pull with adults but could easily pull with children. [1:
‘Child Labor in the Industrial Revolution.’ History Crunch – History Resource for 21st Century Teachers and Learners! Accessed December 21, 2018. https://www.historycrunch.com/child-labor-in-the-industrial-revolution.html#/.]
Although many children had to make extra income to help their family survive, the work had a detrimental impact on their well-being. Children would work under intensive conditions for long periods of time without any relief. These conditions usually occurred when a child was working in either a mine type of factory, these had the most dangerous conditions especially for a child. “the factories and mines were incredibly dangerous places with very few safeguards.”1 Children were welcomed at various mines, many children got caught underneath ruble or stuck in small closed spaces either being in a mine or factory, but they were still expected to work to the best ability to complete the tasks at hand. “Because children were small and could fit into tighter spaces, they were often tasked with unclogging machines that had stopped operating. As a result, children often suffered horrible injuries to their hands and fingers when the machines suddenly began working again.”1 Throughout this time, children were crippled every single day and without any sympathy factory owners would simply go on and higher more children to take their places, leaving the handicap children to fend for themselves in life as a cripple. Conditions of factories were not safe for anyone, let alone small children. Due to these conditions many children died young. America was beginning to lose an entire generation due to these working conditions that so many had to experience and go through. Children were hired at an alarming rate, these numbers were not something that was looked over, it astonished many. The workforce would continuously grow, hiring more and more children each day. Factories were good for using children as a means of their productivity. Most of the time without these children some of those factories would not have survived through the revolution.
Another impact that child labor had on society was the lack of education the children had. Although they were helping their families, children were hurting themselves by not attending school. Many children did not have time to attend school due to their long hours at work, and the days they did have off they would likely want to rest, due to the intensive hours they had to work. This led America to an uneducated society of middle and lower-class children, which would grow into an uneducated adult generation, for those who even made it to adulthood. This was hindering America development.
All of these issues had to come to an end. There is a very touching picture that shows women demonstrating against child labor in New York City in 1900.[footnoteRef:2] This is when people truly started to see a problem with what was going on.They slowly but surely began to make laws against child labor. They began in 1836 by requiring children under 15 working in factories to attend school at least 3 months/year, this at least gave the children some education to help them later on in life. Then the Fair Labor Standard Act was passed, which was the law that prohibited children under 16 from working in manufacturing and mining and various other hazardous jobs. Children ages 14 and 15, however could still be employed in nonindustrial, non-mining, and non-hazardous jobs during school vacations and outside of school hours. This dramatically cut down on children being injured, crippled and uneducated. Throughout time, laws have become stricter on how many hours a person under a certain age can work; where they are they can be employed and other regulations to insure the safety of young children. [2: ‘Women Demonstrating against Child Labor, New York City.’ DocsTeach. Accessed November 26, 2018. https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/demonstrating-against-child-labor.]
In conclusion, starting from the start of the American Industrial Revolution there were many issues dealing with child labor. Due to the Industrial Revolution, children were becoming slaves to factory owners. Although they were being paid, they were put under hazardous conditions, which they could not refuse. Children were pushed into working to help the survival of their families, but many times they were striving to survive themselves. Once society came to realize the dramatic toll these conditions were taking on children, they knew they had to put an end to it and start making changes. Which they did by making child labor laws, which did not tolerate these work ethics that the children were put through every day, this stopped the crisis that was bound to destroy many generations to come.
Works Cited
- ‘Child Labor in the Industrial Revolution.’ History Crunch – History Resource for 21st Century Teachers and Learners! Accessed December 21, 2018. https://www.historycrunch.com/child-labor-in-the-industrial-revolution.html#/.
- ‘Women Demonstrating against Child Labor, New York City.’ DocsTeach. Accessed November 26, 2018. https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/demonstrating-against-child-labor.
