The Children of the Coal
LaToya Washington
Dr. Daniel Bush
Western Civilization II
May 9 2017
This paper will address the painful reality of the lives of child labor. This paper will be derived from scholarly throughout time to address; how our world today has changed due to the death and upheaval of small nimble bodies of children. This paper looks and explores the lives of, mainly orphans, children of the Industrial Revolution. Although our world as we know it has changed for the better; has credit been given where it is due, and that is to the children of the industrial revolution.
Childhood to the generations after the Industrial Revolution seems so simple; friendships, school, playing …show more content…
In the unstable and depressed interwar period, economic historians reinterpreted the industrial revolution in terms of the business cycle and a market economy’s tendency to generate booms and busts.” (HUMPHRIES) There are many great figures in marking Britain’s Industrial Revolution history, yet, one group of figures are not honored with art work and statues like they should be. These figures are the orphans and poor children of Britain. The use of orphans and poor children was a way to get free and or cheaper work. Many may wonder why a poor child’s family would allow such thing to happen to their child, but with added pressures on the families due to high taxes, this was the only option for …show more content…
Child labour was often essential to family survival.” (HUMPHRIES) “Parents, for very good reasons, needed the contributions which children could make to the family economy, and would use strategies to maintain the opportunities for child labour. In late nineteenth-century Philadelphia, for example, 60.8 per cent of 14-year-old boys living in households where the head had been born in Germany were in employment, compared with only 33.3 per cent of black children: the reason almost certainly was that Blacks had been excluded from access to the limited number of opportunities for child employment.” (Cunningham) Yet, not only did the middle and lower class families depend on the wage earnings of the children, the industries did also. The children were a great way to keep costs low and profits high. Due to low wage and the high cost of surviving month to month many families had no other choice. Often times, families would work together if there was an opportunity; fathers and sons working side by side. Many women had to work too, just like the children. If the mothers could find work, they would leave their children at home to keep them out of the mills. If families stopped supplying their children to the textiles, iron, cotton, and coal mining mills, these were key industries for Britain at the time, Britain still would have had plenty of children in
LaToya Washington
Dr. Daniel Bush
Western Civilization II
May 9 2017
This paper will address the painful reality of the lives of child labor. This paper will be derived from scholarly throughout time to address; how our world today has changed due to the death and upheaval of small nimble bodies of children. This paper looks and explores the lives of, mainly orphans, children of the Industrial Revolution. Although our world as we know it has changed for the better; has credit been given where it is due, and that is to the children of the industrial revolution.
Childhood to the generations after the Industrial Revolution seems so simple; friendships, school, playing …show more content…
In the unstable and depressed interwar period, economic historians reinterpreted the industrial revolution in terms of the business cycle and a market economy’s tendency to generate booms and busts.” (HUMPHRIES) There are many great figures in marking Britain’s Industrial Revolution history, yet, one group of figures are not honored with art work and statues like they should be. These figures are the orphans and poor children of Britain. The use of orphans and poor children was a way to get free and or cheaper work. Many may wonder why a poor child’s family would allow such thing to happen to their child, but with added pressures on the families due to high taxes, this was the only option for …show more content…
Child labour was often essential to family survival.” (HUMPHRIES) “Parents, for very good reasons, needed the contributions which children could make to the family economy, and would use strategies to maintain the opportunities for child labour. In late nineteenth-century Philadelphia, for example, 60.8 per cent of 14-year-old boys living in households where the head had been born in Germany were in employment, compared with only 33.3 per cent of black children: the reason almost certainly was that Blacks had been excluded from access to the limited number of opportunities for child employment.” (Cunningham) Yet, not only did the middle and lower class families depend on the wage earnings of the children, the industries did also. The children were a great way to keep costs low and profits high. Due to low wage and the high cost of surviving month to month many families had no other choice. Often times, families would work together if there was an opportunity; fathers and sons working side by side. Many women had to work too, just like the children. If the mothers could find work, they would leave their children at home to keep them out of the mills. If families stopped supplying their children to the textiles, iron, cotton, and coal mining mills, these were key industries for Britain at the time, Britain still would have had plenty of children in