Revealed: Industrial Revolution was powered by child slaves

The text is about child labour in Britain during the Industrial Revolution. Indeed, child labour was much more common and economically important than previously realised. The text by Jane Humphries offers different statistics that concretely sound out the social-economic ground of the time. She estimated that, by the early 19th century England had more than a million child workers, accounting for 15 per cent of the total labour force. Children in workhouses without parents and a future were bought by Messers and obligated to work in industries or farms; they were not paid and their masters used to give them simply a dormitory accomodation and one meal a day. In this period children suffered bad condition (bad nutrition, exploitation, epidemics, etc.). In addition, industrialisation removed rigid social control over young people’s lives and allowed them therefore to get married much younger; this led to much larger families which in turn led to rapid population growth. During most of the 18th century only around 35 per cent of ten year old working-class boys were in the labour force while the figure for 1791-1820 (when large scale industrialisation started) was 55 per cent, rising to 60 per cent for the period of 1821-1850. Besides the terrible and unhuman exploitation of them, the use of working-class children estabilished an expansion and extension of industries and progress. On the other hand, the expansion of the Industrial Revolution increased labour mobility, and this strained fathers’ links to their growing families, and single parent households increased dramatically. This is the reason why many children found themselfs without an house and parents. In addition, by the early 19th century, families were being abandonated by fathers, and many other men died in accidents, epidemics and wars. This interesting research make realise to the reader the terrible condition of that part of history that people should not forget.

The Victorian novel reflects social problema such as poverty, the living condition in workhouses, child labour, the exploitation, the concept of education, and last but not least the relationship between social classes (the poor and the rich). The article is about the exploiment of children during the Industrial revolution. It is interesting for the purpose to refere to the article. It is organised into fourth sections. In the first one, the introduction explains the problems of society during the 18th century. Indeed, the Industrial revolution had been possible thanks to child labour. → the introduction presents/deal with the conditions that made the Industrial revolution possible: child labour. The thesis of the article is that the Industrial revolution was made possible by child labour. All that, made British Imperialism possible. To support this thesis, the journalist provides some datas; the datas he provides concerne the different percentage of child forse in time. For example, if at the beginning of the 18th century only the 55 per cent of children worked in industries, in 1820 children emploied were 60 per cent. This shows that a standing rise in children work force was regarded. A further reason for the use of child labour in factories was that they were esier to control than adults, because children were adapt to work in factories for the reason that local labour was scarce and the agricultural workers (who came from the country side to the city) were unsuitable for industries production ( they hardly could adapt of the industrial production). → children used to adapt to all situations because they were more flexible and malleable.