Michael Armstrong Factory Boy

Coming out of the Age of Enlightenment, Europeans were filled with new ideas regarding economics. Grouped with those ideas was a desire to increase production and innovation. This is what ushered in the Industrial Revolution, a rapid development of industry in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries. From the beginning of the revolution in the late 1700's, all ages and both genders were used as workers in mills and factories. More so than in previous eras, children were common employees alongside their elders. Being children, though, their needs were often overlooked or ignored completely. For the most part, the working conditions of children during the Industrial Revolution were extremely harsh and they received poor treatment. However, some
Harsh working conditions were one of the many hardships children working in the mills faced. They were often mistreated, as stated in the 1840 novel Michael Armstrong, Factory Boy. Crews of children in the mills are described as dirty and miserable. They would be whipped for not performing tasks properly or fast enough. From this and the rest of their difficult work, they appeared hideously older than they really were. This novel shows how lowly the children were looked upon. Thought of nothing more than miniature slaves, their treatment clearly matched that title. This could be attacked on the one ground, though. Even though this novel is from the years of children workers, it was not necessarily written by someone that had experienced it themselves. Therefore, it could have fault in the subjects written in in. Additionally, many of the jobs the children workers had to perform were dangerous on many levels. From a report of deaths in the year 1838, 58 children under the age of 13 and 60 children from the ages of 13-18 died from accidents inside of the mines. Those deaths reveal the dangers that children faced while working in the mines. There were countless causes of these deaths,
Headmost, a law on the amount of hours a child could work a day was passed. From the Health and Morals of Apprentices Act of 1802, no child could be employed for more than 12 hours a day. They could not work between the hours of 9 at night and 6 in the morning. This law implies that people knew that children should not be subjected to as much work as adults and that they were willing to change their hours in the name of their comfort and safety. Furthermore, the children were given proper food and pleasant living/working conditions. Coming from The Philosophy of Manufactures in 1835, all ages, children included, earned plentiful food and domestic accommodations. They were shielded from the hot or cold outdoors while working and their housing quarters were very spacious. This exaggerates the point that the workers were in phenomenal conditions at the mills. They were treated with such pristine conditions, it's said, that their housing was of higher quality than that of some of the aristocracies. This can be questionable, however. Of course a mill or factory owner writing this book would want everyone to think that the conditions were wonderful at mills. Their goal was to make the mills seem like a commendable place so that they could keep attracting workers to them. Additionally, the children were treated very