[Rat]

We had to write an essay on child labor for socials. It's due tomorrow, so I've got my final product for school, though I might change it some for a personal project. It surprised me to find out how many people in my socials class didn't know what an essay is (ie. structure). Any help you can give me structure-wise, or if my logic's messed up or something would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Child Labor in the Industrial Revolution

A difficult time in history, the Industrial Revolution was also one of Britain's most prosperous. Britain's economy was extremely strong, and there were many new technologies invented. Unfortunately in order to maintain this, factory owners in most industries needed laborers who would work for very little pay. Among these workers, one of the most prominent groups was the children. There were many root causes of child labor. Among them were the advances in agriculture, the growth of cities and factories, the extreme poverty, and horrible working conditions of the lowest classes. Child labor also still affects our lives today.

As agricultural technology evolved, rich landowners no longer needed the aid of as many farmers. Also, the rich men bought the land from other individual farmers. This forced many families to find work elsewhere. A few people managed to find work as household servants for wealthy families, but most went to work in factories or mines. Children, as well as adults, had to work to support the family as England's economy went from being agriculturally based to being industry based.

The growth of cities and factories further spurred child labor. There were more young children around, thus more prey for men who were paid to kidnap young children to work as chimney sweeps, in factories or mines, or as prostitutes. With more families moving to cities, it was really the child labor that made the cities and factories grow, rather than the other way around.

In the Industrial Revolution, most of Britain's population lived in poverty. Living conditions were horrible, and the poor received very little, if any funding from the Poor Law, a system similar to our present-day welfare system. In order to survive, entire families had to work. Some went to workhouses, where they lived and worked, while others lived in very cramped quarters near the factories in which they worked. Not only adults worked, though men made the greatest - though still very little - amount of pay. Children worked as well. Their main jobs were to get into small spaces, in which adults couldn't fit to unclog textile machines, or to transport coal through long, narrow mineshafts.

Everyone in this period in time endured harsh working conditions, but the children had the worst. They were the only ones who could fit into cramped mineshafts, or dart through the moving parts of spinning or weaving machines to repair broken mechanisms. The conditions in factories were extremely dangerous, and employers didn't care, so didn't take any actions to improve the working conditions of their employees. Workers - especially children - were viewed as expendable objects because there were always more of them. They could be paid very little for working long hours in dangerous conditions, and their employers could have them beaten. Children developed many diseases and physical problems. Working in coal mines or as chimney sweeps, they developed cancer of the scrotum from the coal dust, and often suffocated in chimneys if they were too narrow. As chimney sweeps, if a child refused to climb further up the chimney, their master would light a fire under them to force them up. In textile factories, children often lost limbs, ore even their lives. They eventually lost their sight, hearing or both, and developed respiratory problems due to the cotton fluff in the air. Working in mines and textile factories also led to stunted growth and physical deformations. Another danger in a child's life at this time was being kidnapped for prostitution. Over half of the prostitutes in Britain during this time were between the ages of thirteen and eighteen.

Child labor, though not as prominent, is still used today. We take it for granted, as the wealthy in past times must have, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, as much as we wish it didn't. Much of today's child labor occurs in third-world countries where most of the big companies, Ikea, for example, have their products made. They can pay workers very little, and then charge a lower price for them on the market. But still a lot of our child labor today is slavery. Fathers sell their daughters into slavery - often prostitution - in order to feed their families. Children work in dark sweathouses making clothing and ruining their eyes. Almost all our clothing, our shoes, and our computers, just to name a few, are made in third-world countries, often as a result of child labor, and we, as comparatively rich people, turn a blind eye to this problem, though we know about it and want to stop it.

The Industrial Revolution was of great economic importance to Britain, and we would never have made it to where we are now without the technologies discovered, but all this came at a cost. Agricultural advances forced people to ever-growing cities, where poverty was a way of life for most people, and the horrors of child labor cost many children their lives. This horror still lives on today, mostly in third-world countries. Throughout history, child labor has been an important part of world economy, though a horrible part. It has been one we have not been fully willing to confront, because it holds such a familiar role in our lives, and what it produces is in many ways a necessity to us.
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~Gio

afterglow

[[666]Flat]

Maybe it would be a good idea to back up your argumentation about child labor encouraged by global playas like Ikea with concrete examples and facts, honey?
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[Dr. Bang]

"They can pay workers very little,"

Thats because workers from other degreed profession gets pay as little as them. Paying shoes maker any higher would piss many in the country off.


But i agree about the working condition though, its like slavery.
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Join Roundeye's secret art forum. SHHHHHHHHHHH!

[AndyT]

[YVerloc]

Hey Rat,

I saw this Bertrand Russel passage, and it reminded me of your topic. it's from "Unpopular Essays/ Ideas That Have Helped Mankind"

"Even more important than the domestication of animals was the invention of agriculture, which, however, introduced bloodthirsty practices into religion that lasted for many centuries. Fertility rites tended to involve human sacrifice and cannibalism. Moloch would not help the corn to grow unless he was allowed to feast on the blood of children. A similar opinion was adopted by the Evangelicals of Manchester in the early days of industrialism, when they kept six-year-old children working twelve to fourteen hours a day, in conditions that caused most of them to die. It has now been discovered that grain will grow, and cotton goods can be manufactured, without being watered by the blood of infants. In the case of the grain, the discovery took thousands of years; in the case of the cotton goods hardly a century. So perhaps there is some evidence of progress in the world."

I thought that his analogy between human scarifice and child labour was brilliant.

Sorry for the belated bump folks
YV