Child labor under capitalism / by Mrs. Hylton Dale.

  • Dale, Marianne
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Child labor under capitalism / by Mrs. Hylton Dale. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Child Labor under Capitalism. • i B ft The Industrial Revolution and Child Labor. At the end of the eighteenth century England ceased to be predominantly agricultural and became the most important manu- facturing country in the world.11' Child Labor being regarded by the manufacturers as absolutely essential to the speedy piling up of fortunes, the morality of which no one questioned, it was universally employed in the cotton mills and factories which suddenly sprang up in the land. Manchester, specially the seat of the cotton trade from its earliest days, was the greatest employer of Child Labor, and became wealthy and populous. In ten years—from 1780-1790—the population almost doubled, owing to the inrush from the country of people, who were tempted by high family earnings to barter their infinitely healthier existence on the land for life in crowded slum cities. A positive majority of the workers in the cotton mills were young children. Until the middle of the eighteenth century spinning and weaving had been done in cottage homes with the simple hand looms which had altered but little from primitive times. But with the introduc- tion of elaborate and costly machinery into factories the work changed its character. New methods, new buildings, new modes of life superseded those of the rural life of the English peasantry. The latter at first refused to allow their children to work in the factories and mills which had been built by their streams and rivers from which was derived the water-power which worked the machinery. The parents at first considered it derogatory and degrading work for 3?oung people. But to procure the cheapest form of labor was con- sidered not only justifiable but almost a mandate from heaven. The wealth that poured into the country, notably into the pockets of the manufacturers, was regarded as a reward from God for industry and self-help. Unfortunately in the workhouses of London and other large towns manufacturers easily found the cheap material they required. Shoals of unwanted children of all ages, even as young as five and six, were transported from workhouses and sent as parish apprentices to remote districts wherever their labor was wanted. The parish authorities, whose callousness was equalled by the manu- facturers, were only too anxious to be rid of the burden of rate- supported children, and they actually stipulated — so little did humanity and pity rule their hearts—that a due proportion of feeble- minded children must be taken as part of the contract. As far as is known no further interest by the overseers was shown in the fate of these hordes of victims of ungoverned industrialism. * The Industrial Revolution, by Arnold Toynbee ; Growth 0/ English Industry and Commerce, by W. Cunningham ; Capital, by Karl Marx.
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