Child Labor during the Industrial Revolution

During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Great Britain became the first country to industrialize. Because of this, it was also the first country where child labor became a major social and political issue.  My blog will be discussing the social issue of child labor during the British Industrial Revolution.

Defining child labor: “Involves children being enslaved, separated from their families, exposed to serious hazards and illnesses and/or left to fend for themselves on the streets of large cities – often at a very early age” – International Labor Organization

Child labor before the industrial revolution included chores around the house or assisting with family businesses. The family’s household needs determined the family’s amount of labor.  Children carried out different tasks that were supportive to their family’s well being therefore they contributed to their family by general labor, household tasks, and assisting with family duties (caring for younger children). Children who lived on farms worked in the fields planting seeds, harvesting or working with the livestock.  Gender roles came into play as the boys were made to look after the cattle and sheep, and girls were made to milk the cows, and look after the chickens. Children who worked within the home were domestic servants, apprentices, chimney sweeps, or assistants in family enterprises. As apprentices, children lived and worked with their masters who paid them in training in trade rather than wages. By the time these boys turned 21 they had enough skill to open their own business. At the age of 12 it was common for most girls to leave home to become servants in the homes of traders, shopkeepers and manufacturers. They were paid a low wage, and received room and board in exchange for household chores that included cleaning, cooking, caring for children and shopping.

Child labor within the early industrial revolution included work within mills. These child apprentices were impoverished orphans taken from orphanages and were housed, clothed and fed but received no wages for their long day of work in the mill. After the invention of the Watts Steam engine, more factories were developed around England and began to hire children from impoverished or working class families to prepare cotton, flax, wool and silk. It was then that child labor became a social/political issue due to the fact that children were working in dreadful conditions. These children worked for twelve to sixteen hours a day, six days a week, not having any relief for meals in hot, stuffy, poorly lit, overcrowded factories to earn as little as four shillings per week.  

Below is part of an autobiography of a man who lived these conditions.

“Jonathan Saville (born 1759)

    Until I was seven years old, I lived partly with my father and grandmother and partly in Horton Workhouse. I was then bound apprentice to a man . . . he turned me over to the colliers in Denholme; on which my father said to him, ‘I had rather you'd tied a stone round his neck, and drowned him’. I was a fine, growing, active lad at that time. I saw some cripples in the house of my new master, and the thought came across me that I was to share the same fate with them. At first I was taught to spin worsted; but it was not long before I was taken to the Coal-pit.” (Humphries, 2012)

What was happening to these children became a debate that resulted in key laws that were passed. The three that most involved the welfare of children were “1) the Cotton Factories Regulation Act of 1819. This law set the minimum working age at 9 and maximum working hours at 12. 2) The Regulation of Child Labor Law of 1833. This law allowed there to be paid inspectors to enforce the laws. 3) The Ten Hours Bill of 1847. This law restricted the amount of hours worked to 10 for both children and women.” (Tuttle, 2003). Today, society would view this law as being restricting to women and causing inequality among genders; so it is interesting to compare how times have changed and how women’s rights have developed.

The decline of child labor could be attributed to many things. Some ideas include the establishment of roles within the family (father is the breadwinner, mother is a housewife), interest in education (sending their children to school), or advances in technology that only strong adult men were able to operate. Though the issue of child labor in Britain has become history, it continues to remain a large issue within developing countries today.

Alexandra

References:

Tuttle, Carolyn. (2003). "Child labor during the British industrial revolution". EH.Net Encyclopedia. Retrieved from

http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/tuttle.labor.child.britain

International Labor Organization. (n.d). “What is child labor”. International Labor Organization. Retrieved from

http://www.ilo.org/ipec/facts/lang--en/index.htm.

Humphries, J. (2012). “Childhood and child labor in the British industrial revolution”.  The Economic History Review. Wiley Online Library. Retrieved from

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0289.2012.00651.x/abstract

Division of Labour by Gender: A Social Issue Affecting Women

        The labour force has gone through a lot in the past few decades. Things like division, expansion, and acceptance are all apart of the labour force we knew, know, and will come to know. This post is going to discuss the division of labour and its affect on women in the past, present, and future.

In the past, it was normative for women to take care of the home, their children, and their husbands. These responsibilities of women elicit three normative expectations that society had for women. These expectations were that women were to have children, get married, and have a home. All of which made a woman successful in society.

In the past, a man and a woman would take specific paths in their life in order to gain social acceptance, the man being more privileged than the woman. Both would marry but the paths before and after marriage were very different. Men would be sometimes educated and then work to provide for their family. After work, men would come home to a meal prepared for them, house chores done, and kids taken care of. The woman did all of these things because women were held responsible for all of the cooking, cleaning, and all of the needs of the children. Because of these pathways that were expected of each gender, when a man or woman moved away from the normative expectation of them they were seen as socially deviant.

To grasp a better understanding of this, think of your grandparents. Did your grandma ever have a job? If she was employed, was it at a grocery store, as a server or something along those lines? Now think of the males in your life. Your grandfather probably worked his whole life to provide for his family. Now think of your grandmother again, is she the one to usually cook and clean the house? All of these questions have expected normative answers for the period our grandparents grew up in, and because of this, most of our answers are based on these expected norms. With thoughts of your grandparents in the labour force, it becomes more evident that these normative expectations of gender influenced the division of labour because of the roles each gender was expected to play based on assumption of success. A woman wasn’t welcome in the work force because she was deemed incapable. Incapability often leads to low success rates. This is a very gendered concept but it was the way of life in the past that created limits, boundaries, and held caps over the success of a woman and the rising of a woman in society.

In the present, employment circulates around equality. Even though workplaces are still not as equal as they could be there is an extreme improvement than in the past. According to Statistics Canada, in 1965 31% of employees were female and today 60% of employees are female. This is a great expansion in the labour force. With most constrictions lifted of females being incapable, the lack of division in labour is not affecting women in such negative ways as it did in the past.

In the past women were not given the opportunity to build on their own, they had to build based on a man providing for them. This was extremely limiting in that if a women was not married, there was a very high chance that she was not successful based on norms, values, and expectations of society in the past. Without work, women could not expand to their full potential where as now women are able to flourish.

Not only is the workforce different today, but the expectations of women are too. Women aren’t completely viewed without gendered stigmas. A lot of the stereotypes are not followed as they were decades ago, which leaves women to be socially deviant in the lens of the past but also socially developing in todays lens. This allows women to be independent; to help lift damaging stigmas, to excel just as their male counterparts do, and it allows women to rebuild their socially perceived role.

I hope that in the future, the wage gap in the labour force will be smaller and women will be viewed in completely equal lens, as men are and have been since the beginning. If wage gaps are eliminated more and more conflict between a woman’s capabilities and rights will hopefully be understood in a gendered equal paradigm.

We have already come more than half way with women in the labour force, lets hope that the only affect it has on women in the future is positive.

Geraldine

References:

Statistics Canada. (2011-11-22). The Changing Face of Canadian Workplaces. Retrieved from http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/labour/employment_standards/fls/resources/ resource01.shtml#cn-cont

Child Abuse in Pre-Contact Anishnaabek Times

                                         

         In pre-contact Anishnaabek times, child abuse was not a social problem. Children were taught and cared for by all members of the community, most particularly women. Children were educated in the ways of their culture, in a learning process that started at birth and continued until death. At the core of this education was respect; respect for each other, the Earth, and the Creator.  Children were seen as a gift from the Creator and highly loved, cared for, and respected. Child abuse was basically non-existent.

        Anishnaabee women themselves were also highly respected, and had responsibility and power within their tribe. Women were also primary gatherers in their community, and were responsible for looking after children. They also prepared animal skins and made clothing. Women were treated equally to men, as all people were valued and respected. Issues that women face throughout history, such as gender inequality, were not present in the Anishnaabek people before their contact with Europeans.

       However, the arrival of Europeans brought about changes to the Anishnaabe way of life. The Europeans were trying to assimilate the Aboriginal culture. First Nations people were moved onto reservations and there was the arrival of residential schools. Residentials schools sought to destroy the culture of the Anishnaabe people, by "stamping it out" in the children. There have been numerous cases of sexual and physical abuses in the schools, as well as deaths, and sicknesses. The children were torn from their families and then, after they had been completely wiped of their previous cultural, returned to their homes where they did not fit in at all. Mary-Ellen Kelm writes “scores of residential school children were discharged because they were not expected to live. This strategy was intended to achieve humanitarian and practical ends. It allowed the family to spend some time with the child before the child’s death, and it meant one less death to be investigated at the school.”

    The social issue of child abuse in pre- contact Anishnaabe families was basically unheard of and non-existent, because of the love and care they showed for their children. However, with the arrival of Europeans, this changed, particularly with the introduction of Residential Schools, which had exuberant amounts of child abuses and horrors.
- Jessica

References:

Canada's First Nations: European Contact. (n.d.). Home | University of Calgary. Retrieved from http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/firstnations/approaches.html

Canada's History - Walking on the Lands of Our Ancestors. (n.d.). Canada's History - Home. Retrieved from http://www.canadashistory.ca/Education/Lesson-Plans/Lesson-Plans/High/Walking-on-the-Lands-of-Our-Ancestors.aspx

First Nations Health Council. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.fnhc.ca/images/uploads/FNHC_Health_Governance_Book-web2.pdf

The Eastern Woodland Hunters - Family / Social Structure / Leadership. (n.d.). First Peoples of Canada Before Contact Menu. Retrieved from http://firstpeoplesofcanada.com/fp_groups/fp_wh6.html

Women's Roles & Sexuality in Early Modern Europe

Women’s Roles & Sexuality in Early Modern Europe

The roles of women have transformed enormously over time. As women, our freedoms, our independence, our ability to make choices for ourselves were things that were not always prevalent within society. We have lived within a man’s world for centuries and have come a very long way.  My blog is going to explore the women’s roles and sexuality within Early Modern Europe.

In Early Modern Europe women’s sexual and marital status mattered most, as a woman’s life was for the purpose of getting married and reproducing. Acceptable women were; virgins, wives, or  widowers (Ruth Mazo, 2003, pg. 155). A woman could marry amongst her social and economical class solely; however, was able to choose her spouse providing he met these criteria. This in itself was a big step forward from Medieval Europe where arranged marriages were normative, and wives just hoped whoever they married would not be physically or emotionally abusive towards them (M.E Wiesner, 2000, pg. 52).  The abuse some women experienced was something lived with for a very long time, or their whole marriage. Divorce was very frowned upon, and virtually impossible unless your spouse had died (M.E Wiesner, 2000, pg. 52).

A man’s masculinity and sexuality was celebrated; painted, songs were written about it, pornographic literature exploring this. However, a woman showing too much independence or sexuality could actually leave her punished or even killed (M.E Wisner, 2000, pg. 59). Women were viewed as sex objects, or property (Ruth Mazo, 2003, pg. 154). As previously stated, the purpose of women was to marry and reproduce.  Men often had wives for reproduction purposes but also saw prostitutes when they wanted to have more “dirty” sex.  Wives did not perform in the way prostitutes did as it was made illegal as per religion, to perform sexual intercourse any other way but missionary. Men would not be so "unclean" as to have rough or dirty sex with their wives- that was left for the prostitute and barring children was the only reason they have sex with their wives ( M.E Wiesner pg. 58).

In this era contraceptives did not exist and for many women unmarried pregnancy was terrible. If a single woman became pregnant she would lose her job,  and could even be charged if the individual she conceived with was married or if it was her employer she got farmiliar with-even if it was rape (M.E Wiesner, 2000, pg. 63). This left unmarried pregnant women in an economic down spiral. Some women would move residents to live with friends or family however, it was illegal to hide pregnant women (M.E Wiesner, 2000, pg. 63). Others women may have decided to hide the birth. Women would give birth in outhouses, cow stalls, hay mounds, hoping they wouldn’t be noticed by the public and take their babies to a new foundling homes established in some major cities in the 16^th century. Some women would even kill their child (M.E Wiesner, 2000, pg. 63). 

The term “quickening”, meaning the waking of the child’s soul occurred when mothers would first feel their child moving inside them (M.E Wiesner, 2000, pg. 62). It is not until then that the pregnancy was official. There was medication a woman could take prior to the quickening without it being considered abortion (M.E Wiesner, 2000, pg. 62). Consequences for attempting of performing an abortion after the child’s soul had awoken resulted in harsh penalties. Aborting a child was made a capital offence in 1532, where women would be drowned and men would be decapitated if found guilty of this (M.E Wiesner, 2000, pg. 62) . 

In 1624 a stature passed in England making it a requirement that all unmarried women who find themselves pregnant were obligated to sign a declaration of their pregnancy, and if the infant died prior to the baptismal they would serve the death penalty.  In Early Modern Europe more women were executed for infanticide than any other crime other than witchcraft (M.E Wiesner, 2000, pg. 63) .

In today’s world, Canadian women have a lot more freedoms, independence and are able to make their own decisions. Marriage outside of our social class is acceptable, women go to school, and have the ability to control birth through various methods of contraception. There is still stigma attached to abortion today and it is still viewed as a sin through religious perspective however, women are not serving the death penalty if they chose to abort. Women have come a long way.

Cassandra

References:

Karras, R. (2003). Women’s Labours: Reproduction and Sex Work in medieval Europe. Journal of Women’s History, 15 (4), p.153-158.

M.E Wiesner. (2000). Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, p.52-63.