This article was published on Monday 22 December 2014 by Cambridge University press. The title is Childhood and Child Labour in the British Industrial Revolution by Jane Humphries and it deals with the importance of child labour during the Industrial Revolution. The thesis of the article is written in the first few lines and says that “child labour was much more common and economically important than previously realised” and “was the crucial ingredient which allowed Britain's Industrial Revolution to succeed”. Child labour refers to the employment of children in any work that deprives children of their childhood, interferes with their ability to attend regular school, and that is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful. These children worked in agriculture, home-based assembly operations, factories, mining and in services. Some worked night shifts lasting 12 hours.

Immediately after, in the second paragraph we found the first argumentation in support of the thesis. In this argumentation the journalist reports some percentages and statistics on the importance of child labour during the industrial revolution.

In the third paragraph the article explain the reason why factory owners started to assume child labourer (“Factory owners were looking for cheap, malleable and fast-learning work forces”).

After that there are illustrate other percentages about this fact. Throughout the text the reporter continues to emphasize the fact that in any case the industrial revolution “helped change life and culture in other ways too”. In the conclusion, thanks to a citation of Professor Humphries, are highlighted the concepts expressed in the thesis, and another time is said that the “the English Industrial Revolution – and indirectly the imperial expansion it helped generate” depended on child labour.

All of these numbers and statistics reported help the reader realizes how many were truly all children, even very small, exploited and forced to work hard for more that 10 hours a day. The owners were interested only in their own enrichment. Today still works like this for many brands, which build their holdings in the third world countries designed to exploit children. In my opinion, today we are claiming to be a "developed" and "modern" world, even if there are still too many children who are exploited to work hard and with terrible conditions.