Young Miners
Victorian Era Child Labor
Required to carry mined substance out in heavy baskets
Work horse "literately"
Most of these children will not see there 25th birthday from the inhalation of coal dust
The Need for Money
Children, as young as three years old, were required not by law, but by there own despite family members to go work 10-15 hour days just to say alive due to lack of food.
Bosses
Often times the bosses of the child laborers were cruel and irrational with the children. A interview with Hannah Brown, who at the time was a girl working in a mill brought a good insight to me about the cruel bosses, "I witnessed the boss drag another female the same age as me 3-4 yards across the floor by her hair"
Mines Today
Even though mining now days is not considered a safe occupation, compared to mining in the days when child labor was acceptable it is a very large improvement. In the early 1800's children were expected to go in the mines down mining shafts just large enough to hold a few children and were not very stable or supported. Now days 7-15 people can fit onto a average mining elevator. Current day elevators are also more safe with backup generators incase the power to the lowering cable is disconnected. Before child labor was considered an issue to the government the bosses of the mines would send the children into the mines to not only break the cole from the stone but to sit above the conveyor belt moving at rapid speeds and reach down with bear hands to remove non coal substances. The acton often caused injury and permanent damage to the child's body. They were also put in chins and used to haul the broken off coal up to the surface with carts on rails. In todays world child labor is still apart of the mining process. According to wikipedia.org an estimated 12.6 million children are still working in the mining industry but there are many regulations protecting them on the amount of hours they are able to work. Also there are restrictions on the jobs that they are able to work at the mines. In conclusion we have made leaps and bounds on the process of ending child labor but we still have much farther to go but if we continue the path we are on now soon enough child labor will be a topic of the past.