Category: Economic History

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Bootleggers, Baptists, and Child Labor

Factories

As you know, I’ve paid a lot of attention to child labor in British factories during the Industrial Revolution. Child labor was a big issue back then; public agitation probably started in 1796, when the Manchester Board of Health issued a devastating paper about the health of families in that increasingly industrial city.

But it wasn’t until 1833 that Parliament passed a law that was effective in limiting the hours young children worked. Earlier acts  had no method of enforcement. The Factory Act of 1833 (also called “Althorp’s Act) did have teeth: it required inspectors.

Why did a genuinely strong bill pass in 1833? The answer may surprise you. Continue reading “Bootleggers, Baptists, and Child Labor”

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The Furor over the 1619 Project

Anti-Slavery Broadside

My last post addressed the New York Times’ 1619 Project. Published in August 2019—400 years after the arrival of African slaves in Virginia—the project‘s essays took up almost the entire New York Times Magazine plus a ‘broadsheet” of African-American history prepared with the Smithsonian Institution. It was a show-stopper. It argued that modern America, from capitalism to health care, was shaped almost entirely by slavery.[1]

Many praised this tour-de-force and it received the Pulitzer Prize in 2020. But criticism also emerged very quickly, and that is the subject of this post. Continue reading “The Furor over the 1619 Project”

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Regarding the Times’ 1619 Project

American flag painted on wall

I’m a year late, but I’ve finally had the time and motivation to read the New York Times Magazine’s 2019 compendium called “The 1619 Project.”[1] As you may know, nearly the entire 100-page issue on Sunday, August 18, 2019, was devoted to the project. Its astonishing goal was—and is—to reset the true founding date of this country to 1619 rather than 1776.

In August 1619, the arrival of 20 to 30 enslaved Africans to the British colony of Virginia inaugurated slavery in this country. As the Times writes in its introduction, chattel slavery “is sometimes referred to as the country’s original sin, but it is more than that: It is the country’s very origin.”[2] Continue reading “Regarding the Times’ 1619 Project”

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The Positive Side of the English Poor Law

English cottage

In my last column, “A Blot on the Poor Law,” I noted an unintended consequence of England’s poor law: It made possible “pauper apprentices.” Had the poor law not been in existence, parishes would not have sent large numbers of children to the textile mills, where they worked long hours and were sometimes cruelly treated.

In this post, however, I want to offer a more favorable picture of the poor laws. Continue reading “The Positive Side of the English Poor Law”