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Child Labor In The 1800s Essay

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As early as the 1830’s Child Labor in the U.S. was already starting to arise. In rural communities child labor on the farm was common, children being employed in factories or mills didn’t seem to be much of a concern to people. In 1830 laws were passed prohibiting children to be hired in an industrial or factory type setting. By 1800, some states passed a large amount of laws prohibiting child labor. Often times these laws did not apply to immigrants so they were often abused on the immigrants which lead to the immigrants living in poor places working for long hours for very little pay. Immigrant or not, child labor back in the 1800’s was a way of life. Wages and Hours Children as young as six years old were already working in factories …show more content…

There were little to no safety rules. Often the coal mine roofs caved in. Many injuries were caused because of the lack of safety rules and safety precautions. Many of the children worked as “trappers”. Trappers were essentially kids who sat in a hole and held a string and once they would hear the coal wagon coming along they would pull up on the string so the coal wagon could pass through. This job was the loneliest of all the coal mine jobs but it was the easiest to perform. The older children would work as coal bearers and all they did was carry coal in baskets on their shoulders to point A to point …show more content…

Children from the lower class families were sent to work in mills and coal mines. Middle class children’s lives weren’t any better they had it just as bad as the lower class. The middle class children would always help out at the home and on the farm but as society became more industrialized their working conditions changed domestic jobs were becoming scarce which forced the children to search for work in unfamiliar places outside of the home. Textile mills would employ many children the mills were so profitable they would run 24 hours a day resulting in many children working night

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