Marxism in The Chimney Sweeper Essay examples

In a photograph taken by Lewis Hine, he shows us “how dangerous the machines are that the children are working on and that they were practically working inside of them” (Document 8). Being in a room full of dust and sweat, small children could get all of the dust and lint stuck in their lungs. With no windows, this work habit is highly unsafe for the children. It is actually unsafe for anyone who is stuck in a small room with no windows for thirteen hours a day. In the same interview, Elizabeth Bentley was asked, “To explain what she had to do while working in the flax mill” (Document 7). Her answer was, “When the frames are full, they have to stop the frames, and take the full bobbins off, and carry them to the roller, and then put empty ones on, and set the frame going again” (Document 8). A six year old child doing all this work was a disaster waiting to happen because children could easily get hurt or hurt another person.

First of all, during the Gilded age, many children were forced to work in unsanitary work places that contained dangerous machines and harmful substances until laws were passed against child labor. At this period, child labor was a huge issue because many children died before they reached their 10th birthday. The Breaker Boys, as shown in document B, were young boys that separated coal from other minerals as a living. Injuries, sickness, and even death was common between the young boys. The boys had to break up sharp coal with their bare hands, breathe in harmful air, and deal with dangerous factory machines that can potentially kill them. This task was very dangerous for children and was continued to take place until the 1900s. In 1913, the New York State Department of State Bureau declared that “No child under the age of fourteen years shall be employed, permitted, or suffered to work in or in connection with any factory [and].... [n]o child between the aged fourteen and sixteen shall be so employed, permitted or suffered to work unless an

The younger boys who worked at the mines were called breaker boys. They didn’t work in the mine itself, but sat on benches and picked out the bits of rock from the coal. “These children worked in the picking room, a crowded, high-ceilinged vault, crisscrossed with rickety catwalks and crooked stairs, lit only by a wall of grime-choked windows” (Levine, Marvin J. "Mines, Mills, and Canneries." Children for Hire: The Perils of Child Labor in the United States. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003. 21. Print.) Within factories, small children had to work fast at the machines, being very careful unless an unfortunate body part happens to get caught in the high-powered, dangerous machinery. For several long hours in rooms without fresh air, ventilation, and sometimes, no windows, the working conditions that the children suffered through were appalling. There are children who work in hazardous industries, risking accident and injury; there are others working in conditions that take a slower but definite toll on the children’s health (Basu, Kaushik, and Pham Hoang Van. "The Economics of Child Labor" The Economics of Child Labor (1998): 412-27. Print.).

On the other hand, because of the establishment of factories by businessmen, the workers ' lives became hard as they faced unfair working conditions in dirty and small working places. They worked long hours with no break. The machines used in factories were also very dangerous and led to workers enduring injuries. Unskilled labor did not even require training. During the Industrial Revolution, child labor became common since it was cheaper to have children working. Instead of earning an education, children started working as early as 8 years old. Also, factories produced pollution within the cities because of all the coal that was being used for power, leading smoke to contaminate the air. People became sick and even

Conditions of factories were not safe for anyone, let alone a small child. Due to these conditions many children died before their prime. Many children “began work at age 5, and generally died before they were 25” (www.victorianweb.org), America was beginning to lose an entire generation due to these working conditions that so many had to endure. Children were hired at an alarming rate. “In 1870, the first time census reported child workers, there were 750,000 workers in the United States age 15 and under, not including those who worked on family farms or in other family businesses” (“Child Labor in America”), these numbers were not something that was looked over, it astonished many. “A cotton manufactory of 5 or 6000 spindles will employ those 200 children” (Bremner 232). The workforce would continuously grow, hiring more and more children each day. Factories were good for using children as a means of their productivity. “Textile factories, for the most part […] were in the forefront of this industrial revolution, and children formed an essential component of the new industrial workforce” (Bremner 232). Many times without these children working some of these factories would not have survived through the revolution.

Document 6 states children working underground, breaker boys inhaled great amounts of coal dust damaging their lungs and causing illness. This shows that many children were worked hard. Additional document 1 shows that in 1910 there were 163000000 child workers,117 infants under one died. That means .5% of the work force was children.

During the industrial revolution in Britain, the usage of child labourers dramatically increased as it became a cheap and easy form of labour. This lead to the continued abuse of many children in textile factories. In 1833, the Factory Act of 1833 was put forth which dictated that no children under the age of nine would work. Children ages nine to thirteen wouldn’t work more than nine hours a day and children ages thirteen to eighteen wouldn’t work more than twelve hours a day. In addition it introduced the circulation of four factory inspectors who were to enforce the new legislation. They were to certify whether children had received their compulsory education of two hours each day and report conditions to the government. This act brought forth attention and sparked debates from the public which made stronger note of the working conditions for children.

In the coalmine, it was rare to come across a boy that was in decent shape. “From the cramped position they have to assume, most of them become more or less deformed and bent-backed like old men” (Document A). From this, many kids had hunches at the age of 12. For a 12 year old boy, a workday included hard work “for ten hours at a stretch, for sixty cents a day” (Document A). Not only that, but the job was very dangerous. Cuts and bruises from the col happen all the time and cleanliness is never thought about. Infections take place, and even worse, often “a boy is mangled

But child labor also provided the help needed in farming families and communities. Child labor was needed in the rural farming areas, dictated by essential daily chores and the requirements of the agricultural seasons. Poor families relied upon child labor in order to attain basic necessities and living essentials. The jobs allocated to children depended on their age and whether they were boys or girls. Farm work could be hard, but working conditions were not dangerous and at least allowed kids to breath the fresh air. The use of child labor, and the risks and working conditions of children, underwent a enormous change in the 1800's. Industry developed on an extensive scale and the mechanization of industry resulted in the abuse of children who were forced to work in terrible conditions in factories, mines and mills. This article provides the history of child labor in America during the 1800's, the following links provide facts and information about events that were particularly relevant to the subject of child

(Miflin, 2014) Health of children in the 19th century wasn’t good; working twelve to sixteen hours a day with hardly any rest would make the children exhausted and would have likely suffered from fatigue. They also would go without food, and would end up falling ill as a result of lack of nutrition. As well as being exhausted, hungry and generally not well, children working over machines would often have bowed legs and their limbs and muscles would be poorly developed. Factories were not the only work children would take on, some children would be sent down the mines and work under ground. Mines were extremely dangerous, and children would work without any sunlight for hours on end, this resulting in a lack of vitamin D. children would be forced to carry heavy equipment whilst traveling on foot through water. If children were not working they would be out on the streets, finding food and looking for safe places to sleep the night, that is if they weren’t at home with families, some families would disown their children kicking them to the streets or to be taken into the orphanage. This would have had major impact on their health as the streets would be riddled with disease, the water wasn’t pure and the food wasn’t easy to find. The cold would have hit them and children would often die after the first week of been on the streets. In 1899 the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was founded (NSPCC) making children’s live that bit

Children most of the time worked in mines, glass factories, textiles, canaries, and home industries. A lot of these industries are filled with dangers that can easily kill them. In this quote “Children as young as six years old during the industrial revolution worked hard hours for little or no pay” (Child labor in factories). A good number of these kids were harassed and mistreated by the factory bosses. If children didn’t arrive on time to work, they would have to be punished by the factory bosses. The punishment was that the children would have to sprint up and down the factory aisle until they were completely drained out of energy and they had to do this nude carrying a backpack full of heavy objects. This caused a lot of children to develop

William Blake's The Chimney Sweeper, written in 1789, tells the story of what happened to many young boys during this time period. Often, boys as young as four and five were sold for the soul purpose of cleaning chimneys because of their small size. These children were exploited and lived a meager existence that was socially acceptable at the time. Blake voices the evils of this acceptance through point of view, symbolism, and his startling irony.

Often, the children were made to work “from five in the morning till nine or ten at night”, with “no time … for breakfast and no sitting for dinner and no time for tea”. These constant and long working hours not only can lead to mental and physical suffering, but they can also cause an increase in injury rates from working in general due to mental and physical fatigue. Additionally, the superiors of the workers often beat the children mercilessly. According to a firsthand account from John Birley, who was a child laborer at the time, a supervisor once “knocked me down knocked me down and threatened me with a stick. To save my head I raised my arm, which he then hit with all his might. My elbow was broken. I bear the marks, and suffer pain from it to this day, and always shall as long as I live...”. This act demonstrates the cruelty the child workers suffered at the hands of the superiors, due to the utter lack of regulation of these textile mills. In fact, the replaceable nature of their jobs and the Combination Acts essentially forced the children to endure this treatment, as they had no other way to support their families. This account is supported by similar accounts from an unbiased third-party doctor who investigated the mills. He stated that not only were the textile mills “nurseries of disease and vice”, the

Throughout the Industrial Revolution children were hired for a vast variety of jobs. A lot of kids in the Industrial Revolution were hired to work in factories. In the factories children had to do some very hard and dangerous jobs including A match dipper whose job it was to dip matches in a liquid called phosphorus, this element is deadly if a person inhales too much of it into his lungs. According to Angus Koolbreeze “this chemical caused the children's teeth to rot out and some even died from inhaling the phosphorous fumes”. A huge percentage of child factory workers, work at a cotton mill. Usually Mill owners hired orphans and worked them extremely hard. For

(Laslett, 1970) Coupled with these innovations was the new concept of applying scientific methodology to industrial processes. (Laslett, 1970) All of these changes, while beneficial to businesses, did little to improve the lot of the industrial laborer. (Laslett, 1970) One of the key complaints of an entirely unregulated labor force in the late 1800s was the extensive use and abuse of child labor. In 1870, nearly three quarters of a million children between the ages of ten and fifteen worked in hazardous aspects of manufacturing, agriculture and street trade. (Laslett, 1970) By 1880, that number was over one point one million, or one in every six children in that age group. (Laslett, 1970) By 1900, that number doubled. The conditions under which children worked were very dangerous. They worked the same shifts as adults (about 12 hours a day, six days a week), denying them the opportunity for school and play. (Laslett, 1970) The factories, mills, mines and other work venues in which they labored were unsafe and unregulated. Children were also often used in the most dangerous aspects of industrial work, such as clearing jammed machines or working in confined spaces too small for adults. (Laslett, 1970) In 1881, only seven states had any kind of regulation laws for child laborer. Desperate for money to survive, immigrants and working-class Americans forged