Time to Work
Child labor the bad and the ugly -Trent Turner
What a Life
Jobs Children Did in the Factories
- In urban factories and textiles children, with a size advantage, were able to squeeze under and in the machines to fix whatever issue it had caused.
- Children, with a size advantage, were able to squeeze into small coal mind shafts and were more adjile. As well as push heavy coal trucks along the tunels.
- On street sides, children worked as sellsmen offering things like flowers, matches, and ribbons
- Some boys, known as crossing boys, swept roads clean from horse dung and rubbish left from horses and carts
Work Hours, Food, and Working Conditions
-The poor working class' quality of food dropped making potatoes, and rotten vegetables a daily meal.
-It was common for a poor family to on have meat 2-3 times a week if that. With a developing child, the lack of nutrients would harm the child's growth.
-It was common for a family to only have available meat to eat 2-3 times a week.
-Conditions in coal minds, where many Victorian children often worked, were terrifying, with lack of ventilation, constant loud noise, rats and the looming ever present threat of a cave in or explosion.
-With many hard working conditions in the minds children developed respiratory problems, and with tight conditions deformed backs.
Accidents that often Happened
-One interviewed hospital was interviewed during the Victorian era, reporting they saw over one thousand child patients yearly due to work accidents.
-In use of the cotton gen, many got their hand caught in the machinery and had the skin and muscle ripped off to bone.
-In coal minds many cave ins or collapses happened on a regular basis and were a looming threat.
-In the coal minds their are many accidents in one being, a horse driver, getting coal to the surface, was crushed between the horse and the wall of the cave.
Punishments Children Faced
-In some factories the punishment for working "tiered", the child would be dipped head first in cistern and sent back to work.
-Most factories punished the children through physical abuse with straps, and sticks.
-Many children attempted to escape hard blacksmithing jobs. Though many children were caught and then punished by the blacksmith branding the child.
-In an all girls mill, when one girl began to rise talks of running away, she was punished by getting a hair cut bald.
Efforts to Improve/Stop child Labor
-After years of horrid child labor, a campaign started to stop it. Beside obvious marches and rallies, authors such as Charles Dickens wrote books detailing the horrible conditions.
-After the years of rallies 2 pieces of legislator was put into place by England's government
-The Factory act of 1833, made it illegal for a child under 9 years of age to work, and limited hours for ages 9 to 13 years of age.
-The Mines act of 1842 made it illegal to have any workers under the ages of 10 years of age.