PAGE 185 Industial Society 

exercise 2

• During the 18^th century, the population from the agricultural and commercial areas of the south shift to the north and midlands.
• Workers lodged into small towns, the so-called ‘mushroom towns’.
• Because of their cheapness and easy manageable even women and children were increasingly employed.
• Long working hours, terrible living condition, lack of public services, and polluted air and water characterized the city environment.
• Industrial cities were organized into overcrowded houses built in endless rows.
• Disease and heavy drinking to bear the toil caused the life expectancy of the poor inhabitants of industrial cities below 20 years.

exercise 3

HOW CHILD LABOR CHANGED THE WORLD

Child labor was a crucial ingredient which allowed Britain’s Industrial Revolution (1) to succeed. By the early 19^th century, England had (2) more than a million child workers accounting for 15 (3) per cent of the total labor force.

Early factory owners – located in the countryside so that they (4) could exploit power from rivers – found that local labor (5) was scarce and that those agricultural workers (6) who were available were unsuitable for industrial production. They (7) therefore decided to create a new work force composed of children, tailor-made for their factories.

(8) Factory owners were looking for cheap, malleable and fast-learning work forces – and found (9) them ready-made (10) among the children of the urban workhouses. They weren’t paid – simply fed and given dormitory accommodation. The exploitation of children massively increased as newly emerging factory began their operation in the late 18^th century.

The use of working-class children to provide much of the labor force for the Industrial Revolution was, (11) however merely an expansion and extension of an already long-established practice of working-class children employed (12) by farmers or artisans.

exercise 4

What was the percentage of child workers during the Industrial Revolution?

By the 19^th century England had employed more than a million child workers, for 15% of the total labor force.

 Why were they chosen as a work force?

Factory owners were looking for cheap, malleable and fast-learning work force and found it on children whom they didn’t pay at all.

 Was this a new practice?

The use of working-class children to provide much of the labor force for the Industrial Revolution was an expansion and extension of an already long-established practice of working-class children employed by farmers or artisans.