The Problem of the Child Labor - Essay Example

number Child Labor Introduction Industrialization of the 1800s to 1900s was characterized by American companies using children as child labor. Child labor is a problem that originated from the American culture of letting children help with the family duties. Children worked in farms to support their families. This culture was extended to industrial workplaces, and soon employers took children for cheap labor. Children worked for wages in the same factories as their parents. Several industries got dependent on child labor. This became a problem because so many children died, faced poor working conditions, and were denied normal development. Because of this problem, American leaders and the public decided to end child labor. This paper describes child labor during the gilded age. It describes the poor working conditions that the children faced and what led to the practice of child labor. In the early years of industrialization, American families and leaders saw the value of children in the factories, mills, and other workplaces. Parents insisted that their children should work to gain more income for the family. This was part of American family culture where children helped with farm chores to make the farm succeed. This was extended to the factories and eventually led to poor treatment of children. Prominent people and businessmen valued children in the factories because of cheap labor. In the early years of industrialization, American companies were competing with foreign companies that would bring cheap products. With cheap labor, productivity within such industries would be improved (Perry & Smith 65). The problem, however, started when child labor transformed into maltreatment of children. Children in factories, mills, and other working places were treated as adults. To make matters worse, working conditions during the gilded age were not good. When an employee got injured, there was no compensation. There were no protection rules. There were no safety rules and safety measures to prevent any accidents, or actions that would hurt employees. Many children got hurt during this period. They worked in the mines. In one story, the children worked while crawling through a 3 feet tall mine tunnel, just like their parents did. Their hands got rough and hard. Some of them bled while working on machines, and mills. Many children got killed (Rosenberg 5). During the gilded age, the lives of the workers were in the hands of the employers. The workers needed the jobs for their own good. It was a sad situation. One miner indicated that they had to work in order to get food, and their earnings were not enough to cater for all their needs. If they ate, it meant they could not buy clothes, and if they bought clothes, it meant they would not eat (Calhoun 57). This illustrates the status of the workers at the time. It also explains why parents had to take their children to their work places. Workers’ wages during the gilded age were so low that the whole family had to work in order to pay rent and have food on the table (Rosenberg 5). Because of this desperate situation, employers never cared about what happened to their employees, they never cared about the working conditions, and so the children worked under similar conditions as the adults. There are times when the workers would be locked up in factories for claims of stealing, and the children would be locked up with them. At times, there would be fires, and the children would jump out of the windows, just like the adults. So many children died due to mistreatment from employers. The problem of low wages worsened due to group migrations into America that brought more people and children willing to work for even lesser pay. It even made the working conditions worse, because nobody cared except to get the money. Children picked cotton, fruits and vegetables. Some worked as mule handlers and breaker-boys in the mines, others as bobbin boys and girls in the textile mills. Children worked without shoes, waking up very early in the mornings to set up shoeshine stands and sell newspapers. The children worked in glass factories, hosiery mills, and in the tenement house industries making paper baskets, flowers or sewing clothes. They worked as domestic servants, smoked as they made cigars, and cleaned chimneys. They worked for long hours, 12 hours or more a day and six to seven days a week. Additionally, people lived in poorly ventilated, overcrowded, unsafe, and unheated tenements, which had no access to electricity or water. They were prone to diseases and germs due to such poor environments (Rosenberg 5). The Poor Working Conditions During the Gilded age, children worked alongside their parents. As indicated above, if the adults went on strike, so did the children. The poor working conditions during the gilded age were because it was unsafe. United States Department of Labor provides stories detailing the working conditions at the time. Workers died from poor working conditions’ related blasts. An example is the blast that occurred in a steel mill in Butler, Pennsylvania. This blast was caused by spilt molten steel from a hot metal pot onto wet sand. The hot metal poured down on the workers. There were no preventive measures in place to ensure that there were no spills, or that no spills injured workers. From this accident, 30 men were injured, and 4 died. In another incident, in Youngstown Ohio, two employees were hit by large amounts of dust when they were sent to clean dust underneath the blast furnaces. One employee died on the spot while another escaped with severe injuries. The cause of the accident was speculated to be a spillage of ore and molten fuel inside the furnace. Again there were no protective measures to prevent spillage and such accidents (United States Department of Labor). People worked around unprotected machinery in various industries, and this caused a lot of accidents. A young boy was once caught on a shaft rotating at 300 revolutions per minute, and had both legs and arms torn off while working at a coffin plant. One machinist was thrown 50 feet to the floor when his arm was caught in a rapidly moving belt. Another worker had his skin torn off when he was caught in a belt, in a brick making factory. In one sawmill factory, a worker was cut into two when he fell onto an unguarded circular saw. During this period, employers never cared about the dangers of the workplaces. Dangerous saws were unguarded; the risks of spillages were not accessed and prevented, people were sent to do dangerous jobs without protective gear, and it was almost normal for people to die or get injured in such dangerous workplaces. In several cases, the causes of the accidents were poor working conditions. Equipment, machinery and materials were not protected or well maintained. In one case, molten slag spilled on workers due to a slip of a ladle hook from an overhead crane. The ladle hook had just been perilously attached to the rim. In another story, a navy yard’s main steam power plant’s large flywheel caught a worker and tore off his legs and arms. The worker was hurled down 50 feet away. There was a lot of miscommunication between the workers and the employers who would send employees to workplaces they understood nothing about (United States Department of Labor). Conclusion Child labor during the gilded age came naturally due to the culture of letting children work in families to help out. This turned disastrous during industrialization when more factories came up, and more labor required. The working conditions were poor, and this got worse due to immigration into the US. The situation placed employers in more powerful positions exploiting employees to maximum lengths. This contributed to the poor working conditions described above. The children worked in similar job areas as the adults, and this exposed them to similar poor working environments. Most factories were characterized by dangerous working environments with cases of fires, accidents, and deaths very common. These accidents and death made Americans realize the unhealthy working conditions and made changes. Organizations against child labor came up, and soon child labor in America started reducing. Works Cited Calhoun, Charles, William. The Gilded Age: Perspectives on the Origins of Modern America. Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007. Print. Perry, Elisabeth, Israels and Smith, Karen, Manners. The Gilded Age & Progressive Era: A Student Companion. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Print. Rosenberg, Chaim M. Child Labor in America: A History. North Carolina: McFarland, 2013. Print. United States Department of Labor. Progressive Era Investigations. n.d. Web. Retrieved from: http://www.dol.gov/dol/aboutdol/history/mono-regsafepart05.htm Read More