Children as young as six years old started working during the Industrial Revolution, children often worked hard long hours for no to minimal pay.
During this time, it was very common for children to be worked up to 19 hours a day, with a strict one-hour total break. A “lucky” amount of working hours would be considered 12-14 hours with the same minimal breaks. Not only were children victim to too long working hours, but also, terrible working conditions. Large, heavy, and dangerous equipment was very common in factories and other industries during this era, therefore children would be working near danger all day and night without any safety precaution. Many accidents occurred, from injuring or even death of children on the job. Even though children worked through these harsh conditions they were paid only a fraction of what an adult would get paid.
Conditions reached heights of such corruption that factory owners would get away with paying children nothing with the excuse that they were feeding orphans, giving them shelter, and clothing, all of which are still far below par. The children who did get paid were paid very little.The physical abuse inflicted on children in the factories was heartbreaking.The youngest children, who were not old enough to work the machines, were commonly sent to be assistants to textile workers.
The grown women and men who the children worked for would often beat them viciously, verbally abuse them, and have no consideration whatsoever for their safety. Both boys and girls who worked in factories were victims of beatings and other cruel forms of paininfliction. One of the most common punishments for children would be getting “weighted.” A factory owner would tie a heavy weight to the children’s neck such as bricks, and have the children walk up and down the factory aisles for countless hours. “Weighing” could lead to serious injuries in the back and or neck. Humiliation was also part of the punishment, teenage boys were sometimes dragged naked from their beds and sent to the factories only holding their clothes, to be put on there.
This was the factory owner’s method to ensure that the boys would not be late, even by a few seconds.The industrial revolution was an important pinpoint in history which brought the development in the technological, social,economic, and cultural innovation. The industrial revolution encouraged the thought of new ideas and a new ideology of the production of goods. Specific industries that excelled during this period were the textile industry, as well as that new material’s were introduced such as iron, steel and the use of new energy sources such as coal, steam engine, electricity and the internal combustion engine.
There is no argument in question that the industrial revolution impacted society positively but it was also accompanied d by many negative effects such as child labor, abuse of labor right’s, pollution, hygiene and sanitation.
