by Angie Lindsay

Created on: June 15, 2011   Last Updated: July 14, 2011

The Industrial Revolution was a massive time of change for most of the world. Changes occurred that affected agriculture, transportation, technology, mining and manufacturing. Population and household incomes greatly increased. It affected every part of life in ways that had never been seen before. Everyone was involved, including children.

Change is often good, but sometimes has very negative consequences along the way. When change happens as rapidly as it did during the 1800s, it requires the manpower to get it done. However, more people working means more wages going out. Factories and mills were being manufactured, but the owners didn't want to have to pay a lot of money for the amount of people required to get the job done. Unfortunately, they turned to children for the solution.

Child labor

Children began working in every aspect of industry. They were small, making it easy for them to fit in between machinery. They were too young to know they should be getting paid better wages for their work. Most came from large families, and they needed what little income they received. Children were not restricted by age or by the amount of time they worked at the beginning of the Revolution.

Coal mines

The History Learning Site shows pieces of testimony from people living at the time regarding how these children were treated. In the coal mines, young children often worked as "trappers", operating trap doors by pulling a string when they heard coal wagons coming. Older children would carry loads of coal on their backs. Laws changed in 1842 that made it illegal for girls, and boys under the age of 12,  to work in the mines. They were often mistreated, poorly fed and beaten if they didn't perform their jobs well.

Cotton mills

Cotton mills often took in orphans, allowing them to live there in exchange for labor. They were pushed hard, working long hours without much time outside to breathe, let alone play. Serious accidents happened involving children being scalped by machines, hands crushed and death. Children would become so tired from working for so many hours that they would fall into the machines.

Factories and brick making companies employed children to do some of the more dangerous jobs. In match factories, kids were used to dip matches into phosphorous. This led to death from breathing the toxic chemical. Children were used as chimney sweeps as young as 4 and 5 years of age. It was outlawed in 1832, but the practice still continued. They found jobs on farms working to scare birds out of fields for long hours each day or in gangs as laborers.

Changes

Many people didn't believe it was wrong to force children to work. It was seen as a way to help the families by having more family members earning money. However, there were some who saw the treatment these children endured as abuse and fought for laws to prevent children from working.

Change began taking place during the 1700's by setting laws to limit the ages and amount of hours for working children. However, the Factory Act of 1802 went farther in demanding certain working conditions for children. In 1844, several advocates worked together to get the Factory Act of 1844 passed, stating that children couldn't work if they were younger than age eight. Certification of deaths or accidents had to be reported.

Massachusetts was the first state in the United States to pass laws protecting child workers, in 1836 and 1842. Battles went on for several years between 1842 and 1938 to stop child labor completely. President Franklin Roosevelt passed the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1842, finally putting a legal end to child labor.

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