Summary Of Children Working In The Pennsylvania Coal Mines

Everyone can agree life has it’s wonderful and egregious moments. Some people have a grand life with insufficient negativity. Others people have a miserable life and non imposing. In the late 1800’s and beginning to mid 1900’s, child labor caused several children to have an inimical life rather than a preeminent life. When people read what these children had gone through, they fail to remember to put themselves in the children’s situation; therefore, they don’t understand, nor cease how horrendous life was for the children. Numerous factual documents state how deplorable life was for the children during this era. Furthermore, these documents include the Union-made Cigars, Finding of the Commission, the Law of 1913, the letter from WPA Teacher Union to Governor Lehman, and lastly a telegram from Mrs. of Nassau County to Governor Lehman. Schools today teach this time period to the students and share innumerable certainties of the children’s lives. Ultimately, children in this life span had an atrocious duration.

This picture shows the young boys who would help the coal miners break up rock. The boys were about eight to ten years old. This picture is an excellent example of the hard work the young working class would put in to ensure the country's economy and industry improved. Jobs like this for young children built character and made them into tough individuals who drove the country during industrialization.

During the late 1800’s and the early 1900’s child labor was a social issue that developed in the United States. In the early 1900’s, so many children ages 16 and under were working in American mine and factories. Our kids should not be forced to work at such an early age, they need education and a good childhood that they will always remember. Some children that are as young as 4 years old are being forced to work in crammed, dangerous factories. These factories are full of poisonous fumes and diseases that can obviously kill. Kids as young as 13 are being forced to work around 13 hours a day. Working these 13 hours is exactly what most adults are working at the time. Kids are also earning a lower wage since they are minors, employers

Child labor was very common and popular especially in the late 1800s and early the 1900s even though many people were not aware of the dangers. We can define child labor as work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and cause to their physical and mental development. Children are the base of a country but in a developing country child labor is an issue that has yet to disappear. Most of the children remain illiterate because of their poor economic condition and parents do not have enough money to spend on the education of their children, rather they send their children for work so that they could earn some money during their poor economic condition. The objective of my research paper is to raise awareness

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.).

Throughout the 1700’s and the early 1800’s child labor was a major issue in American society. 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 usually seen in families of middle or lower class because extra help 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 not ordinary jobs for young children, these jobs required much time, effort, and hard work. “American

It was not uncommon for both sexes of all ages to be working alongside each other in horrid, hazardous conditions during the era of industrialization. A prime example of the use of child labor was the Breaker Boys in the Woodward Coal Mines of Kingston, Pennsylvania.

At this time children started working at a young age. The necessity of supporting their families, which caused child labor, forced children to start working at a very young age. In rural America, it was such a common practice for children to start working on farms at such a young age, that they picked up the trade before they became teenagers. According to Rosenberg, “by the age of ten, the farm boy began to acquire a workmen's identity of his own. He was capable

“The right to a proper childhood is considered a human right, but it wasn’t always like that.” Child labor was a major problem during the Gilded Age. It was a disgrace seeing mostly all of the children from the United States working under very poor conditions. Children who were born into a second or third class family were subjected to work in very dangerous jobs, which included many health hazards. Most of these children looked way older than they really were because they were treated that way. All but the smallest babies worked. The children acted like adults instead of the children they were. They were forced to work because if they had the choice to go to school and learn they would’ve chosen that option instead of having to work all day.

In 1900, children as young as nine years old were once expected to work sixteen hours a day in harsh conditions. They were useful because of their small size and the owners being able to pay low wages. Child labor laws exist because brave men, women, and children fought for these rights. The conditions of the children’s working environment caused Lewis Hine and the newsies to act upon it.

The “Gilded Age” was a time between the Civil War and World War I. It was also a time of economic growth. During this time new discoveries were made of new technologies and products. It was the beginning of industrialization. With new discoveries of technology and products that led to a better life for the middle class and a jump in the economic success.

“C: What time did you begin work at the factory? B: When I was six years old” (Testimony on Child Labor in Britain) Children started doing strenuous work at such young ages. Children would often be mentally or physically tormented in life because

Child Labor, once known as the practice of employing young children in factories, now it's used as a term for the employment of minors in general, especially in work that would interfere with their education or endanger their health. Throughout history and in all cultures children would work in the fields with their parents, or in the marketplace and young girls in the home until they were old enough to perform simple tasks. The use of child labor was not a problem until the Factory System. The Factory System is a working arrangement where a number of people cooperate to produce articles of consumption. Some form of Factory system has existed even since ancient times.

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