Tag: Industrial Revolution

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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 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”

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Workers Unite: ‘The Transforming Power of the Cross’

"Clowne Methodist Chapel" by Respect AKP is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
“Clowne Methodist Chapel” by Respect AKP is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

In recent weeks, I have described how workers in the British Industrial Revolution (1750-1850) were wrenched out of their slow, agriculturally paced existence into an unpleasant, time-dominated factory life. Eventually, they accepted that pressured life.

I offered two forces that encouraged them to accept it. Now I have a third. Continue reading “Workers Unite: ‘The Transforming Power of the Cross’”

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Child Labor—in the Congo and in the Industrial Revolution

According to the United Nations, 40,000 children work in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, mining for the mineral cobalt. They work for up to 12 hours a day under dangerous conditions that can be deadly when they have to go underground.

Americans may be partly responsible for their work.

Cobalt is an essential ingredient of most electric vehicle batteries, and demand for electric vehicles is growing. The U. S government is promoting and subsidizing EVs. Recently, in a House-passed infrastructure bill, a Republican congressman tried to ban the purchase of battery ingredients that depend on child labor. His amendment was struck down.

Around 1780, thousands of children as young as 5 or 6 years old began to work 12 hours or more daily in British textile mills.[1] Can we learn something from that experience?

Children had always been expected to work in England, often for long hours, but the mechanized factories brought them out of homes and workshops. The textile mills didn’t need brawn; owners wanted women and children to monitor the moving machines and piece together broken threads. Their work cost less than men’s and they were more docile. Continue reading “Child Labor—in the Congo and in the Industrial Revolution”