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 Post subject: Review another history essay? (Cuz you know you love me <3)
PostPosted: Mon Apr 02, 2012 7:37 am 
Major
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Working conditions for children in 19th century factories were harsh and extremely hazardous. Reform for better conditions was very slow. Children were put under extreme pressure from their families to work, due to factories offering higher wages than children could hope to obtain in the other fields of employment available. The jobs offered to children were repetitive and not mentally stimulating. They had strict rules and guidelines, used physical and mental punishment to discipline children who were not following their exact orders. They also often had very long working hours and had extremely unhygienic working conditions. This essay explains what the working conditions for children working in 19th century factories were like. The first thing that will be covered were the types of jobs that were offered in the factories.

The average working age of a child working in factories was seven. The types of jobs that were offered were usually tasks that could only be preformed by the children due to their size. They were seldom interesting and hardly consisted of anything other than boring, repetitive actions. These tasks were also very physically draining. For example one job required the children to be crawling around on their hands and knees at a fast pace for the entire duration of their shift. The air in the working environment was often often clogged with little pieces of wool or whatever the factory was producing, leading to breathing inside the factories being very unpleasant. The machines used in the factories were also extremely loud, making things even more uncomfortable. Children were monitored very strictly during work hours and were disciplined with physical punishment. In order to fully understand the extent of discipline we must look into it in further detail.

Discipline was very highly valued by factory owners, due most factories' income being based on how hard the children were working. Children were usually allowed a thirty minute breakfast break in the first half of their working day and thirty minutes for dinner around the end of their shift. Other than that the children were expected to be working at their absolute maximum capacity for the rest of their working day. In order to ensure that the children were working to their capacity, overseers were employed to monitor them. If children were caught taking even the slightest break the overseers were authorised to use physical force to discipline the children and get them back to their job. Methods often employed included whipping, beating and even forcing the children to kneel on an iron triangle that was suspended some centimetres off the ground for twenty minutes or more at a time. This was very hard for children, considering that their working day was extremely long when compared to modern standards.

Children were at work for most of their life. Typical hours were five o'clock in the morning to eight o'clock at night, which is a fifteen hour shift. For example, Elizabeth Bentley testified to the English House of Commons on the 4th June, 1832. She stated that she worked from half-past five, 'till eight at night. Over the years the work deformed her body, making her completely unable to work by the age of thirteen. She ended up living in the Poor House. Machinery used in the factories was not designed with safety in mind, meaning that the chances of injury or even death were quite high, especially when considering that:

The average age of workers on the machines was seven years old
Jobs were tedious, physically demanding and repetitive
The children worked fifteen hour shifts with very little break
Overseers heightened stress levels and prevented children from taking breaks if they felt tired or unable to work safely

It was not uncommon for children to lose limbs or be crushed and killed while working. Factory owners were usually very irritated in a situation where a child was seriously injured. This was not because of the child's well being. It was most commonly because the machine would be contaminated and needed to be thoroughly washed before it could operate again. This caused lengthy downtime which in most cases meant a loss of profit. This was mostly due to the fact that for factory owners, children were not highly valued and were treated as replaceable objects. If a child was rendered unable to work he or she would simply be replaced by another.

In conclusion, children working in factories during the 19th century worked extremely long shifts under harsh conditions and they were physically punished if they took breaks or didn't work their hardest. This lead to numerous laws being passed by government. The first of these was the 1819 Factory Act which prevented children under the age of nine from being employed and children under the age of sixteen from working for more than twelve hours per day. By 1878 reforms included

Factories were not allowed to hire children under the age of eighteen at night
Inspectors were hired to make sure factories were following the new laws
Children aged ten to fourteen were not allowed to work over six and a half hours per day
Textile machinery was to be made safer by fencing them off
Machinery had to be turned off while being cleaned
No children under ten to be employed

Gradual improvements to working conditions continued to occur, in order to help prevent the exploitation of children as workers.
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 Post subject: Re: Review another history essay? (Cuz you know you love me <3)
PostPosted: Mon Apr 02, 2012 2:06 pm 
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in the third paragraph it should be "due to most" not "due most" ;)
but other then that typo seems like a good essay to me.

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