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Child Labor History

Samuel Slater came to America to make his fortune He saw it as a way of making more money by selling people things that he invented the people really needed. He thinks: industrialization=profit; so he began to start making children work, because since they had little fingers, they could do things that adults couldn't do. He provided town for people to live in so they would work. SInce he provided housing for the people, he gave them less pay, and so he build a community mall in which the people spend their money on things they needed to this was another way for Slater to take his money back. He controled what people know and believe by providing schools.

Children are not benefiting from this because they have to work long hours in unhealthy factories for wages less than a dollar. They made the machinery easy to handle so then even unskilled children can opporate the machinery because of the Arkwright machines.

Children 7-12 years of age work long hours. Only wealthy children got to go to school to learn helpful thing not like the poor unlucky children who had to go to school that only taught what Slater wanted them to learn. Children working near or on dangerous machinery could easily lose a finger or arm or even get scalped. The machinery used by children is considered a health hazard because many children working by machines have dusty things flowing around in the air they breathe in and many adolescent at that time smoke and gamble. This is not veyr new, many children werent cared for by their parents, getting sold off to child labor to get out of debt.

This picture above shows adolescants working long hours which you can see, seems to have aged them. Many of these young adolescants look tired and sleepy and extremely filthy. The girl in the middle seems like she has a humped back because she probably was leaning over something every day, and every hour. They all seem very sad and dispressed because they had to work every day and without earning a descent wage.

In 1908, laws were passed saying that they can't hire children to work in factories, so when they couldn't hire them to work, they hired them to work in their tenements. In order for them to do this, the people had to get home license to work at home. Anyone was willing to work to make money because they needed to buy things that they couldn't make with their hands. Many people get sick because of the bad conditions they were in like the unhealthy factories and crowded tenents. Cholera is a kind of sickness people get because they drink human waste. Human waste would seep down into the water system, and the people back then had to go to the bathroom, but they didn't have toliets back then so they dig holes in the ground. Well, all of this changed when in 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act was passed which finally eliminated child labor. Children suffered many medical consequences. A doctor wrote a letter to the general assembly of Maryland. A part from this letter: In the surviving population the effects of child labor are expressed in an inferior physical type, which may become distinctive in much the same way as the physical types commonly attributed to adverse conditions of climate or civilation are distinctive. The great manufacturing centres of English furnish examples of such deterioration, the physical inferiority being strikingly apparent to travelers and well known to students of the subject, through but lightly considered by the peole who have been reduced to this statues in the course of three or four generations. That this deteriorating physical type is of national importance is shown by the fact that during the late war in South Africa the English standards of admission to military service were lowered four times, because the country would not yield, under pre-existing standards, enough recruits to carry on a war of so great magnitude. Many of the children suffer from great medical consequences because of the types of work they do and because of the way they work. Many children work in unhealthy factories so they are easily sickened by the machinery around them, and many children lose part of their body just to keep up with the work. This is so fustrating that we as free children can't do anything about it, or can we?

There are many children as young as three who go to work to support there family because even if the whole family works, they might not even be abled to make money for dinner. Sometimes they can't even afford to buy milk or meat. They could only buy vegetables. And each week their kind generous neighbor would give them grains. Many of these people went through difficult hardships because they had to work through long days and mostly the kids don't even get enough sleep so they are tired. Even though they are tired they still had to work to earn the wages even though it ain't much. Although the children get paid wages no more than a dollar, they still put up with their work and their opprotunities. I wouldn't last a day without breaks and freedom, but i can see that they want to stay in this business to help their family, what bravery.

You may not see clearly what the above picture is showing. I will tell you what you are seeing. The boy on the left is holding a knife. All the boys shown above have been cut. They all have been cutting themselves. From what i think, i think they cut themselves because of the stress they are going through, how tired they are and how mad and angry they are.

Many children during the turn of the century had to working making things such as glass. Making glass is dangerous because of the fuse. The children have to breath it in, which limits their health. Many of these children don't know that they might die because they are breathing in the bad dust. All the children want to do is work to get money, but the surprising thing is that they don't know what is bad about working there, nobody tells them because of theri position in life. They probably don't even care about their health by working in places as the glass factory or the mills or even the mines, which is more dangerous because they children will be breathing in the different fuses of coal and black smoke.

The above picture shows many children working in the glass factory. They are inhauling in the dust from making the glass and getting sicker by the minute, but they don't know that.

Many reformers such as Mother Jones and Jane Addams fought against many obstacles in the US. Mother Jones fought for child labor and the rights of children, while Jane Addams fought for the education and the society around children. Child labor overall have been very dangerous to children during the turn of the century because the children were getting many problems and facing many lacks. They were willig to apply themselves to their jobs, but that wasn't good enough for the owners, they wanted more, and they more they got. When the children weren't allowed to work in factories, they brung their work home to their tenements to do instead. This was how far they have gottan to continue child labor.  Now doesn't this seem like such a big disgrace towards the children, working for people with big black hearts. With a evil grin on their faces, the childrens look past it to see the fortune that lays ahead. A little pain and suffering can't hurt that much, or can it? Decide the fate of chidlren around the world by choosing to help them or not, campaign against or with child labor.

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