In my opinion, I don’t think it was right, but nor do I think it was entirely wrong. Sure, children shouldn’t be working at a young age, especially if it affects their life in the long run. But around that time, they hardly had any healthy adults anyway. They needed people to help with the work and they needed that work to help them live. But that backfires, because at the same time as trying to help everyone live, they’re slowly killing themselves. Some factories had ridiculous fumes that would give the children horrible diseases or things like that. Possibly lung cancer, so many bad things could happen. They would have got horrible injuries and affected how the rest of their lives would be. And what about the germs? The horrible bacteria that would get into their bloodstream if they got a cut. Fitting their hands into tiny spaces gave the cuts and grazes that would let all the bacteria and pollution just flood in. That obviously isn’t going to be good for them at all.
“The Industrial Revolution led to a population increase, but the chances of surviving childhood did not improve throughout the Industrial Revolution (although infant mortality rates were reduced markedly). There was still limited opportunity for education, and children were expected to work. Employers could pay a child less than an adult even though their productivity was comparable; there