Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The demise of child labor in the west is one more example of the relationship between national morality and national wealth.
We might ask the OP's question regarding how people were able to view slave labor and not be disgusted. Slavery's fall from favor was concurrent with the rise of the industrial machine age. Suddenly we could afford to be disgusted by slavery.
Thus, when the need for child labor diminished, our moral outrage over the institution became affordable.
While I see where everyone is coming from no offense to men here but I see this as only something men would be okay with. Regardless of the time period if women were in charge you'd NEVER see things such as child labor or brutally exploiting others - especially children to death.
I realize back then life was pretty short and people were forced to do dangerous jobs, but it amazes me it wasn't until the early 20th century and women got involved till people thought watching little kids be routinely killed, broken bones, and horrible suffering wasn't such a good idea.
I find people who whine about how it was back then are a tad strange as like we could do anything about the past....Short of now making it illegal to have child labor which still occurs today...So maybe you need to go to those countries and have them change their laws to suit you?
It's hard to see photos of children working in factories...things were different for sure.
It's not as big a jump but when I was a kid we didn't wear helmets to ride bikes, nor
were there seatbelts in cars. My parents were very caring people, things were just
different. Nowadays much has changed, good and bad. People long ago probably felt
"that's the way things are"....and, sadly, accepted child labor.
Child labor is still an issue around the world. They do it because they want to eat.. Kids are still enslaved, read about the shrimp industry in Thailand.
And when false economies like ours based on borrowing with no manufacturing come crashing down our kids will be working the "fields" again...
For eons children were expected to work to their capacity in the dominant agrarian economy. There were no schools (fir the most part) so children retrieved water, collected eggs, watched after smaller children, and other, more or less innocuous and useful tasks.
It was really after the industrial revolution when so many dangerous occupations involving machinery and chemicals became involved that people started to question child labor. But it is not so much the productive occupation of children that is offensive so much as putting them in danger.
Now nearly a century later, the mere idea of a child being anything other than a coddked oet is seen as an abuse.
Standards do change, mostly for the better, but when we read about child labor during the Industrial Revolution or shortly thereafter, we are reading about the worst abuses because they are what got people to write about it. The people doing the writing were disgusted at the time, and their work helped change public opinion to what it is today.
Standards do change, mostly for the better, but when we read about child labor during the Industrial Revolution or shortly thereafter, we are reading about the worst abuses because they are what got people to write about it. The people doing the writing were disgusted at the time, and their work helped change public opinion to what it is today.
Indeed. Mother Jones led a march of children from the textile mills to Washington D.C., in hopes of convincing Teddy Roosevelt to do something.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
