Child labor
By: Hollie Miller
Jobs Children did in the Factories
- A "Scavenger" would be someone who picked up all the loose cotton from beneath the mavhinery when it would get hung or stuck behind.
- The "Agricultural Gangs" were people who worked in fields a long way from home, gathering supplies needed to help support their families and workers.
- Coal Mines, children were mostly targeted because of them being small and able to maneuver in such tight spaces in the mines.
- Chimney Sweeps, children and there tiny size made them easyier for going down the long narrow stackes.
Hours, Food and Working Conditions
- Children worked longs hours a day mostly 12-18. With the long drug out hours, children often began to develop many health problems.
- The most common food for the factory workers was oatcake with boiled milk for breakfeast and dinner was usally patato pie with boiled bacon if they were lucky. They were served three meals a day.
- Most factories had greadful working conditions, often rat infeststation was common allong with being very unsanitary .
- Once a year factory workers might get lucky and get cheese and bread. They never saw tea or butter and bread was usally too hard to eat.
Accidents that often happened
- When children would reach behind a machine to fix it they would often get their hand and arms caught and ripped off, muscles and skin were stripped to the bone and fingers were lost.
- Children often fell asleep from the long hours working, they would fall into the machinery.
- Clothing would get stuck in the machinery often taking the children with it.
- Children got many wounds, cuts and scraps from there jobs in fixing the machinery.
Punishment Children Faced
- When children wern't working hard enough they would get hit with many straps to make them work faster.
- Some children would be so tired from the long hours they would be dipped in water cistem to help wake them up.
- If children arrived as many as five minutes late for work they would be beated.
- If a child stoped a machine they would get punished untill they were black and blue for slowing down the factory.
Punishing
The little girl is being punished by the head of the factory and is threatened with the straps.
Efforts to Improve/Stop Child Labor
- The National Child Labor Commitees work to end child labor was combined with giving children an education instead of factory work.
- Increasing the childrens accses to an education helped to end child labor.
- The InternationalLabor Rights Fund began to realize that the children working in these conditions were being abused.
- Unions realized taking children from the hazardous working factories and putting them into schooling was a better idea.