Child labor on the united states

Do you remember your childhood years, replete with laughter, fun and games? Do you remember feeling as if your life was so hard and unfair because you had to clean your own room? Imagine not having a room, not having laughter or joy, not knowing what it is like to play and have fun. In the late 1980's through the late 1930's, many children lived tragic lives. Children as young as five years old were waking up at six in the morning and walking to work, whether it be in a factory or a mill or anywhere he or she could earn money for food, and spending the whole day in doors until the dusk. Their work environment was guaranteed to be insanitary and highly dangerous. Their wages were barely enough to pay for food let alone pay for shelter. This was a time of pain and suffering, this was the time of industrial violence, a time where children were stripped of their childhood.

Two girls protesting child labour (by calling it c...

[Portrait of Imogene Coca, Mary Lou Williams, and ...

[Mary, Queen of Scots] (LOC)

What was once the time of skilled craftsmen and qualified individuals who mastered the gentle subtleties of his or trade was gone by the 1880's, the artisan had simply become nothing more than a tender to the machine. Mass production was introduced wherever it could be applied. Parts were standardized, thus allowing for faster and cheaper production. In New Jersey before the Civil War, four silk mills employed 590 workers, this then exploded into eleven silk mills employing 8,000 workers. Due to the abundance of factories and other various industries, the demand for cheap labor dramatically increased.

Children were a target employee for they were not only far cheaper labor than adults, but also capable of doing 3/5 of their workload. In 1910 it was documented that one out of twenty workers was a child below...