AMC Blog - Lycée Mona Ozouf de Ploërmel

The
industrial revolution started around the year 1760, although it was a
necessary and important step in our history, it had many controversies
and nasty stories tied to it. Particularly the use of child labor.
Children were used as workers in Britain during the industrial
revolution, and in other countries during that time. Children under the
age of 10 years old were usually not paid any wages, and children from
the age of 10-14 were sometimes paid but not always.

Children working in these environments were often subject to
violence, and many dangers, often deadly. There were many fatalities
amongst children working during the industrial revolution. They were
often mistreated, and treated as slaves, sometimes getting beaten for
not working hard enough, or for taking breaks. These conditions were
horrible, and not suitable for anyone to work in, certainy not children.
The working environments also caused diseases, particularly lung based
because of all the chemicals and bad air quality from the fumes.

Many workers had poor living conditions, and lived in houses stuck
together, crowded, with poor sanitary conditions. THis was only at the
beginning of the industrial revolution. Because machines quickly
replaced most worker positions. The excessive use of fossel fuels such
as coal made for a non eco friendly practice, (obviously people had no
knowledge about any of that at that time)

The promise of work, and worker positions attracted many migrants,
and led to overcrowding of certain industrial areas, creating more space
for disease and other crowd based issues to arise.