In the text below i’m analyzing the argumentative text “Revealed: Industrial Revolution was powered by child slaves” published by “Cambridge University Press” written by Jane Humphries.

Oxford’s professor Jane Humphries reports that the exploitation of children was the leading and crucial ingredient which allowed Britain’s industrial revolution to succeed. In fact child workers in that time were the 15 per cent of the total workers.

The text is organized into five paragraphs:

1. Introduction and thesis ;
2. The proportion of child workers;
3. Life and cultural changes;
4. Conclusion.

The first paragraph or rather the introduction presents the thesis which Oxford’s professor Jane Humphries wants to support.

The second paragraph has the function to explain the causes of the child labour. The causes are factory owner’s mentality and the location of the factory. In a few words the factory were located in the country side where the local labour was very scarce and that those workers who were available were unsuitable for industrial production. Besides about the factory owner’s mentality, they were looking for cheap, malleable and fast- learning workers, so children were perfect.

The third paragraph shows some figures about child labour and their condition. In the paragraph we can notice the growth in the number of child workers ( from 35 per cent to 60 per cent)  and the diminuition of the age when they started to work (from eleven and a half to ten). In the section is also presented the condition of child workers: they live in workhouses, their salary was food and dormitory accommodation, they weren’t paid, in a few word we can talk about slavery.

The fourth paragraph has the function to tell life and cultural changes of children. Children get married younger so the population grown rapidly and decreased the use of women in the work force. Besides single-parent families increased dramatically due to wars, epidemics and accidents.

The last paragraph corresponds to the conclusion. The professor confirms her thesis and tells the function of her research. In fact she said that her research highlights that the Industrial Revolution depend on child labour and it also transforms our understating of the causes and consequences of  the Industrial Revolution.

In my opinion the text is interesting because it shows the other side of the coin, it show also bad aspects of the Industrial Revolution. Nowadays no child could do that effort and live in those condition.