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Child Labor in the Industrial Revolution 

 

Child labor had always existed in American history, but reached new intensities with the rise of the Industrial Revolution after the Civil War. Children were desired as an alternative source for low-wage labor and the influx of immigrants at the time provided an abundant supply of child workers. They were employed in many different kinds of jobs but the child workers all had to endure working conditions with many health and safety hazards, not to mention long hours with little pay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                               

                               Source: Journal of Political Economy <http://www.jstor.org/stable/1817545?seq=2>.

Young Colorado mine worker
Young girl with towering machinery
A shoe polisher at work
12 Year Old Newsboy, Lewis Hine 1909
Children working in a textile mill.
A look into a child worker's day
"White Slavery: Northern Capital and
"The Child Labor Question"
Working in a Pennsylvanian coal mine

Child Workers in the Early 1900s 

Click to view slideshow.

I used to be a factory hand when things was moving slow,

 

When children worked in cotton mills, each morning had to go.

 

Every morning just at five the whistle blew on time

 

To call them babies out of bed at the age of eight and nine.

 

Come out of bed, little sleepy head,
And get you a bite to eat.
The factory whistle's calling you,
There's no more time to sleep.

 

 

-Dorsey Dixon

"Babies in the Mill" (1960's)

Remembering the child labor he had known 

The census below shows statistics of how many children were working in 1870, 1880, 1890, and 1900. By 1900, the total amount of children working was almost two million. However, many child labor cases often went unreported to the census so historicans estimate that the numbers were much higher, at around six million. 

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