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Child Labor During The Industrial Revolution Essay

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The Industrial Revolution was a time of great innovation and technological advancement, but it was also a time of struggle for many within this great industrial age. Housing was incredibly limited and cramped, the environment suffered due to the immense amount of pollution produced from the numerous factories within cities, and unsafe working conditions threatened the lives of many. Perhaps one of the worst side effects of this time of great change was the use of child labor. Children were used for labor long before the Industrial Revolution, but there was an unprecedented increase in the use of child labor during this time. These adolescent workers were often underpaid and put into even more dangerous working conditions than their adult counterparts.
Many of the children of the Industrial Revolution only knew their life as working within a mill or factory, as they were forced to work longer hours than those of the adults. From several accounts recorded by C N Trueman on the conditions these children suffered, a former child …show more content…

We worked until dinnertime and then to nine or ten at night; on Saturday it could be till eleven and often till twelve at night. We were sent to clean the machinery on the Sunday.” (Trueman) They were often used for their size to maneuver between and underneath machinery, which could and did, end fatally for many of those tasked with such a dangerous job. In an article by Michael Schuman, it is noted that many of the poorer families that were indebted to mill owners would send their children to work within the mills as a means of repaying for their housing and schooling that the mill owners had provided them, as it was seen as a way to support the family through their financial hardships. (Schuman) The children were also often abused if they were seen as lacking by

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