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Industrial Revolution Child Labor

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Throughout early eighteenth hundreds child labor was a major issue in American society. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, children have always worked for family businesses whether it was an agricultural farming situation or working out of a family business in some type of workplace. This was prominent in families of lower class because this would help add to what was needed to support the family. Child labor dramatically changed when America went through the Industrial Revolution. When America’s industrial revolution came into play, it opened a new world to child labor. Children were now needed to work in factories, mills, and mines. These were ordinary jobs for young children, these jobs required much time, effort, and hard work. These …show more content…

Child labor can also be defined as the full-time employment of children who are under a minimum legal age. In the start, Industrial Revolution was the cause for child labor in the United States. Child labor played an important role in the Industrial Revolution from its start, often brought about by economic poverty. The children of the poor were expected to help towards the family budget, often working long hours in dangerous jobs for low pay, earning approximately ten to twenty percent than an adult male's wage. In these economical conditions, it also brought bad living conditions. To being exposed to various chemicals in their food and daily work. In the suburbs of their home they would be exposed to mercury in their drinking water. Mercury exposure can damage the central nervous system, kidneys and liver. Which led to serious health …show more content…

The middle and high class were corrupt and hungry for money. With these traits they would mistreat the child laborers and made them miserable. The middle class changed their mindset on how they would treat children. Hurting them mentally and physically for enjoyment of money. Often child laborers in the South were compared to the slaves that also worked at the cotton farms. They were both practically the same, in other words they were both abused and put threw immense pain since a young age. This is important because it shows how the South depicts the child laborers as. Even though the child was white, they were treated in the close range as the

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