Child Labour In The Gilded Age Essay

During the New Industrial Age in America, many aspects of American life were in flux. People were moving from rural areas to large population centres and factories were booming. This was also when America started to become an extremely capitalist country, with values to match. The economy was set up in a way that lower class Americans struggled to make a living, and as such child labour came into play. Children would work in factories that had conditions barely suitable for adults, let alone still developing children. They had to do this because it was necessary for their families to have whatever extra money they could get their hands on. All the while, upper class Americans were profiting off of the children’s suffering and amassing wealth

Conditions in the factories and fields that lower class American children had to work in were not only horrible and immoral, but also harmful to their health. Child labour is defined as,
The employment of children in any work that deprives children of their childhood, interferes with their ability to attend regular school, and that is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful.
In the Gilded Age in America, there were children as young as three years old working. In the factories, the air quality was horrible. It was full of toxins that could cause serious health problems, especially in children who were still developing and had weaker immune systems. Children who worked in rural areas also worked

Housing costs in cities were ridiculously high. At that time, people had started moving to cities in droves, causing cities to grow massively, and housing costs skyrocketed. There was also next to no assistance from the government, as the general opinion of American citizen was that the government should stay mostly separate from the economy. If a person were struggling, instead of getting help from the government, they would live in poverty. Adult wages were lower than anything that would have been considered acceptable today. At that time, workers had absolutely no rights. Employees now have unions to fight for their rights, but then, workers were replaceable and were terrified of losing their jobs. Though unions were beginning to start up, they were heavily discouraged by factory owners. They were discouraged to the point where they hired thugs to beat up those who joined unions to discourage others. Because adults did not make enough money to support their families, children had to pitch in whatever money they could earn. Factory owners liked child labourers because they could be paid even less than adult workers. On average, children made about 25 cents per day. The children may have been earning next to no money, but every penny was needed to keep them and their families afloat. Child labour did not just exist on a small