Child Labor
- Hours of work starting increasing at the start of the industrial revolution and it exhausted many adults and children.
- The pay people were receiving started to hinder as children were introduced to the working factory setting and took jobs from many people, because the children were very cheap and many were free.
- Children as young as six would work for little to no pay and some worked up to 19 hours a day, with a one hour total break.
- The really young children workers who were not old enough to operate the machines were normally sent to be assistants for textile workers.
- Mainly orphans were the ones that were subject the slave like labor, rich factory owners would bring them in and house them, feed them, and clothe them.
- The children worked in horrible conditions, they were not fed a lot, had no breaks, and were given cruel punishments if they did not give 110%.
- Also many children died by working with large heavy and dangerous equipment that they were unable to handle.
- The owners would get away with paying the children orphans nothing by saying they provided the orphans with food, shelter, and clothing.
- The children’s safety while working in factories was usually neglected by the owners and other workers.
- The people the children worked for would normally beat them, verbally abuse them, and pay no attention to their safety.
- Both male and female children workers were subject to beatings and other harsh forms of pain.
- One cruel punishment if the children were late or not working up to ‘quota’ would be ‘weighted’, which is when an overseer would tie a heavy weight to a workers neck and make them walk up and down the factory aisles, so other children could see them and take an example. And could last up to an hour.
- Weighting as a punishment to being late or not giving 110% could lead to the children employees having serious damage done to their necks and backs.
- 14% of workers in 1740 were under 14, making the other 86% over the age of 14, it was crazy how young the workers were.
- An act of Parliament was passed in 1833 which limited the amount of hours children could work, children 9 to 13 could work for 8 hours a day, children 14 to 18 could work no more than 12 hours a day, and children under the age of 9 were not able to work at all.
- Tow types of child labor are mainly known as “Parish apprentice children” and “free labor children”.
- “Parish apprentice children” were some of the first children to be brought into the factory setting.
- “Parish apprentice children” were taken in by the government and put straight into orphanages.
- Rich factory owners approached the parish leaders and told them they wanted to take in the children feed them, house them, and clothe them in return the children work in their factories.