Unimaginable and Unthinkable Cruelty of Children
Can anyone enjoy the beautiful clothing they own if they knew it was made by a malnourished, overworked, and underpaid child? In the twenty first century, a normal grown adult will work about forty hours in any given week, and it is seen as ridiculous to be made to work more. In the case of hundreds of young children in the Industrial Revolution, forty-hour workweeks would be a dream come true. A typical child laborer will work up to nineteen hours per day, with only a one hour break in between and were paid the absolute bare minimum. According to George M. Young and W. D. Hancock, the terrible working conditions during the Industrial Revolution were awfully cruel and inhumane; in addition, child labor was organized and affected based off gender, social status, and race.
This report written by two men named George M. Young and W. D. Hancock in 1833 was regarding the employment of children in factories in England. The reports are a very in depth indication of what is truly going on behind the factory walls, and they depict every category to fully give the details of what was going on. They discussed everything from regular working hours, to treatment, and all the way to the effects on the children in their reports. They exposed the mistreatment of the children in many different ways; for example, an overseer beat a little boy so incredibly hard that it turned his arm black and blue.(Young & Hancock 1833).Even though this example can be seen as mistreatment, it was also a was their way of instilling discipline. This way their factories would be successful and make a lot of the product they were producing. It also was to create a wall of fear between the employees and overseers. The overseers want the employees to know that they were below the rank and had to do as they commanded because that is the only way that they would profit. In addition, they explained the differences between how different genders were treated within the factory by saying “The boys are often severely strapped; the girls sometimes get a clout.”(Young & Hancock 1833). This shows that however cruel and inhumane these people were, they would give the girls a hard blow (clout) versus the boys getting severely whipped and beaten, until bruised. However immoral these people were, the article seems to show that they will be a lot less abusive to the young girls than the men. This evidently shows that they saw girls as weaker and men as stronger so they could take a hard beat.
This source also aims to show; both genders are not seen as equals, because there would be separate eating and sleeping quarters for them. They would also, as discussed above, be beaten in varying levels of harshness. In my opinion, I see that to be one of the only promising things in a topic that is so dark and nasty because no matter how abusive the managers were, they would try to lessen the excessive punishment to the girls. Obviously there should be no beating or whipping of any kind in a work place, but in the regards to their immorality, there is a small mindedness of it left that protects women and girls. The injustice between the two sexes however was not as large as one might think, due to the way the Western world is raised today. This is because in our world today, we are raised to never hit a women under any circumstance and also because there has been an increase in respect for women in recent times. In the world today, women are receiving the rights that should have been given many years before and are now seen as an equal race to men in many cases. Of course there is still discrimination, but the status of women has greatly increased making it difficult to understand why men would beat women, not to mention young girls. In the past, social class has been one of the biggest factors in determining how people are treated and viewed by others. In addition, Jane Humphries discusses how men truly neglected women and how the men looked as women to be much lower then them. This secondary source was a great tool to describe how gender was affected during the time period (Humphries 2010).
With social class in mind, one would expect that a manager that beats children for making a mistake, would beat someone on a lower rung of the social ladder for no apparent reason. In fact, “In regard to morals, we find that though the statements and depositions of the different witnesses that have been examined are to a considerable degree conflicting, yet there is no evidence to show that vice and immorality are more prevalent amongst these people, considered as a class, than amongst any other portion of the community in the same station” (Young & Hancock 1833). They also continue by saying that “the proper remedy seems to be a more general and careful education of the people” (Young & Hancock 1833). Through this the authors reveal that this is one of the most advanced statements especially from a time where people were extremely racist and intolerant to other people that were not the same as them. Of course the lowest classes in England were the ones that had to work extreme hours, and were also the families that were so poor that they needed to send their young children to work abusive jobs. It is a disgusting fact that there was nothing done to protect these unfortunate people and that they were not helped by anyone. Furthermore, the authors acknowledged the existences of classes, and that the lowest classes were forced to send their children to work, but at the end they did not find that there was a separation within the factories of social classes.
In all of the sources, there was a lack of information regarding the race discrepancy for a variety of reasons. Firstly, during the nineteenth century there was already a huge disregard for any human with a different color of skin than white. There is a realization that when this research was conducted in England, slavery still existed and there was an obvious lack of respect for minorities across the British Empire. During the nineteenth century many people still did not consider minorities to not even be humans, and were rarely treated as humans in this time. For these reasons, the two authors may not have even considered discussing separate races because it was a general agreement that they did not deserve any rights at all. In addition, England was very far from the Americas and the Native Americans, creating even fewer races within England to be used in factories. If the Report had been written during the Industrial Revolution in the Americas, it would have been a much different report because of the number of different ethnicities and races within the continent. In addition, England had a small majority of minorities after the slave trade was banned leaving the few Chinese and Indian servants and seamen to land in England. Although these are two races, almost none were used in factories during the Industrial Revolution, and were merely servants in homes or on ships throughout the British Empire.
No matter how unjust things were in 1833 when the primary source was written, a secondary source explains what good has come in the time since. C. Nardinelli explains how there was a huge overturn in Child Labor after the Factory Acts went into affect, and now the hours worked were reduced greatly in order to give an education to the young children. Nardinelli also went very in depth in discussing the focus of education for children older than the age on nine. Nardinelli also explained the punishment of breaking these laws, which was a huge fine and extra tax for that factory (Nardinelli 1980). However affective these new laws were, no one could ignore the harsh realities that existed just a few years before these acts were passed.
Fortunately, the reports written by George M. Young and W. D. Hancock about the terrible working conditions of children in the Industrial Revolution, exposed the harsh realities of the world; and furthermore, they explained child labor was ordered and affected based off gender, social status, and race. The Reports of Commissioners on the Employment of Children in Factories exposed many of the cruelties that many were ignorant towards in factories across England. It was a terrible shame that so many children’s lives were ruined by the immorality of factory owners so long ago, but in the time since laws have been made to restrict almost any child from doing serious work. It is amazing to see that children are being protected, but that does not mean all children are. Many still exist in sweatshops worldwide, and something needs to be done to stop the animosity towards children and laborers worldwide. Its safe to say that the working conditions today are far from perfect but we truly have come a long way in trying to make our world a better place.
This report written by two men named George M. Young and W. D. Hancock in 1833 was regarding the employment of children in factories in England. The reports are a very in depth indication of what is truly going on behind the factory walls, and they depict every category to fully give the details of what was going on. They discussed everything from regular working hours, to treatment, and all the way to the effects on the children in their reports. They exposed the mistreatment of the children in many different ways; for example, an overseer beat a little boy so incredibly hard that it turned his arm black and blue.(Young & Hancock 1833).Even though this example can be seen as mistreatment, it was also a was their way of instilling discipline. This way their factories would be successful and make a lot of the product they were producing. It also was to create a wall of fear between the employees and overseers. The overseers want the employees to know that they were below the rank and had to do as they commanded because that is the only way that they would profit. In addition, they explained the differences between how different genders were treated within the factory by saying “The boys are often severely strapped; the girls sometimes get a clout.”(Young & Hancock 1833). This shows that however cruel and inhumane these people were, they would give the girls a hard blow (clout) versus the boys getting severely whipped and beaten, until bruised. However immoral these people were, the article seems to show that they will be a lot less abusive to the young girls than the men. This evidently shows that they saw girls as weaker and men as stronger so they could take a hard beat.
This source also aims to show; both genders are not seen as equals, because there would be separate eating and sleeping quarters for them. They would also, as discussed above, be beaten in varying levels of harshness. In my opinion, I see that to be one of the only promising things in a topic that is so dark and nasty because no matter how abusive the managers were, they would try to lessen the excessive punishment to the girls. Obviously there should be no beating or whipping of any kind in a work place, but in the regards to their immorality, there is a small mindedness of it left that protects women and girls. The injustice between the two sexes however was not as large as one might think, due to the way the Western world is raised today. This is because in our world today, we are raised to never hit a women under any circumstance and also because there has been an increase in respect for women in recent times. In the world today, women are receiving the rights that should have been given many years before and are now seen as an equal race to men in many cases. Of course there is still discrimination, but the status of women has greatly increased making it difficult to understand why men would beat women, not to mention young girls. In the past, social class has been one of the biggest factors in determining how people are treated and viewed by others. In addition, Jane Humphries discusses how men truly neglected women and how the men looked as women to be much lower then them. This secondary source was a great tool to describe how gender was affected during the time period (Humphries 2010).
With social class in mind, one would expect that a manager that beats children for making a mistake, would beat someone on a lower rung of the social ladder for no apparent reason. In fact, “In regard to morals, we find that though the statements and depositions of the different witnesses that have been examined are to a considerable degree conflicting, yet there is no evidence to show that vice and immorality are more prevalent amongst these people, considered as a class, than amongst any other portion of the community in the same station” (Young & Hancock 1833). They also continue by saying that “the proper remedy seems to be a more general and careful education of the people” (Young & Hancock 1833). Through this the authors reveal that this is one of the most advanced statements especially from a time where people were extremely racist and intolerant to other people that were not the same as them. Of course the lowest classes in England were the ones that had to work extreme hours, and were also the families that were so poor that they needed to send their young children to work abusive jobs. It is a disgusting fact that there was nothing done to protect these unfortunate people and that they were not helped by anyone. Furthermore, the authors acknowledged the existences of classes, and that the lowest classes were forced to send their children to work, but at the end they did not find that there was a separation within the factories of social classes.
In all of the sources, there was a lack of information regarding the race discrepancy for a variety of reasons. Firstly, during the nineteenth century there was already a huge disregard for any human with a different color of skin than white. There is a realization that when this research was conducted in England, slavery still existed and there was an obvious lack of respect for minorities across the British Empire. During the nineteenth century many people still did not consider minorities to not even be humans, and were rarely treated as humans in this time. For these reasons, the two authors may not have even considered discussing separate races because it was a general agreement that they did not deserve any rights at all. In addition, England was very far from the Americas and the Native Americans, creating even fewer races within England to be used in factories. If the Report had been written during the Industrial Revolution in the Americas, it would have been a much different report because of the number of different ethnicities and races within the continent. In addition, England had a small majority of minorities after the slave trade was banned leaving the few Chinese and Indian servants and seamen to land in England. Although these are two races, almost none were used in factories during the Industrial Revolution, and were merely servants in homes or on ships throughout the British Empire.
No matter how unjust things were in 1833 when the primary source was written, a secondary source explains what good has come in the time since. C. Nardinelli explains how there was a huge overturn in Child Labor after the Factory Acts went into affect, and now the hours worked were reduced greatly in order to give an education to the young children. Nardinelli also went very in depth in discussing the focus of education for children older than the age on nine. Nardinelli also explained the punishment of breaking these laws, which was a huge fine and extra tax for that factory (Nardinelli 1980). However affective these new laws were, no one could ignore the harsh realities that existed just a few years before these acts were passed.
Fortunately, the reports written by George M. Young and W. D. Hancock about the terrible working conditions of children in the Industrial Revolution, exposed the harsh realities of the world; and furthermore, they explained child labor was ordered and affected based off gender, social status, and race. The Reports of Commissioners on the Employment of Children in Factories exposed many of the cruelties that many were ignorant towards in factories across England. It was a terrible shame that so many children’s lives were ruined by the immorality of factory owners so long ago, but in the time since laws have been made to restrict almost any child from doing serious work. It is amazing to see that children are being protected, but that does not mean all children are. Many still exist in sweatshops worldwide, and something needs to be done to stop the animosity towards children and laborers worldwide. Its safe to say that the working conditions today are far from perfect but we truly have come a long way in trying to make our world a better place.
Bibliography
Primary Source
Hancock, W. D. Report of Commissioners on the Employment of Children in Factories, 1833. Ed. G. M. Young. New
York: Oxford UP, 1956.
Secondary Source
Nardinelli, C (1980), “Child Labor and the Factory Acts.” Journal of Economic History
40(4): 739-55
Humphries, Jane. Childhood and Child Labour in the British Industrial Revolution. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press, 2010.
Hancock, W. D. Report of Commissioners on the Employment of Children in Factories, 1833. Ed. G. M. Young. New
York: Oxford UP, 1956.
Secondary Source
Nardinelli, C (1980), “Child Labor and the Factory Acts.” Journal of Economic History
40(4): 739-55
Humphries, Jane. Childhood and Child Labour in the British Industrial Revolution. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press, 2010.
Primary Source
George M Young, and W. D. Handcock wrote this primary source; they were both apart of the upper middle class. This particular primary source is a set of parliamentary papers. Parliamentary papers are important because they are written to try to change legislation regarding the conditions of factory life for children and women. This primary source was produced in 1833 during the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain because it gives information about life inside the factories. These parliamentary papers describe and tell how long children and women worked for. It also includes descriptions about how they were mistreated and what they went through working everyday in the factory. The main reason these two men constructed this primary source was to inform others of what was actually occurring inside the British factories. Everyone knew at this time that the factories produced different types of products in very short amounts of time, but people who did not work inside the factories had very little knowledge of the treatment of the workers were receiving. The workers consisted of very young children, and women. This source shows how the children and women were shown as weak. The factory owners abused the workers abilities of making them endure long hours and how the factory owners made the workers put their lives at risk. Also, from the mistreatment in this source it is evidently shown how beating the workers instilled discipline. The authors of this primary source put forth these parliamentary papers in trying to get a change of how the workers were treated and also that their should be a age limit.
Gallery
This was an act set forth because people started to realize the mistreatment children were getting. This act was to protect the live of the young ones.
Due to the bad working conditions of young children during the Industrial Revolution there has been laws created since to help protect children. This image shows the progression of the laws that have been made.
This is an example of what not only children faced but women and men too. The factory overseers would beat them to make the workers realize that they had to follow the rules exactly the way they were stated. Overall it was to make the workers be disciplined in the work area.
This cartoon depicts how workers were beat when they messed up inside the factories or did something wrong. The overseers would beat the workers to instill discipline, from the beating the workers would get fear and they had to do everything they were told to do.