In the mid-19th century, Britain was facing problems of over populated cities. Life for the poor class was incredibly difficult. To survive, children as young as _____ had to find work to bring in money for food and shelter. In such families young children were seen as a burden and older ones as a source of income. Oftentimes unexpected circumstances such as sickness would leave families unable to support themselves. Orphaned children took to the streets or were put in parishes by closest kin which were not much better than the streets. Slowly people started to take notice of their plight. Both newly formed and pre-established philanthropic agencies began bringing in children and apprenticing them. Homes like Barnardo, Rye, and Macpherson Homes were set up all over Britain to accommodate them. Hundreds of families would admit their own children to the Homes when they could no longer provide for them. With this overwhelming response, the child savers soon had more children than they could handle; they began searching for a place to send them. Canada was not the only place considered for child emigration, but in the end it appeared to be the most favourable. Not only did the passage to Canada cost less than the passage to Australia, another place where child emigrants had been sent, (Parr, 1994) but it also “promised a supply of temperate moral and pious rural homes”. (Parr, 1994) The child savers literally believed themselves to be “child savers” that offered the children salvation from the evil ways to which they were exposed in the city. Canada also needed young workers and hoped that by accepting young children form Britain and exposing them to farming, it would bring them up to be a new generation of farmers as adults. ... ... middle of paper ... ... education proved challenging for Home children during adulthood. The many difficulties the young immigrants endured not only isolated them form Canadians around them but it also discouraged most Home children from staying in rural communities. Works Cited Corbett, G. H. (1981). Barnardo children in Canada. (pp. 11-65). Peterborough, ON: Woodland Publishing. Parr, J. (1994). Labouring children: British immigrant apprentices to Canada, 1869-1924. (pp. 11-141). Toronto, PQ: University of Toronto Press. Bagnall, K. (2001). The little immigrants : The orphans who came to Canada. Toronto, ON: Dundurn Press. Corbett, G. H. (1981). Barnardo children in Canada. (pp. 79-118). Peterborough, ON: Woodland Publishing. British home children. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.pier21.ca/research/collections/the-story-collection/online-story-collection/british-home-children
Upper Canada was in the tumultuous process of settlement during the nineteenth century. From 1800-1860, wheat and flour exports went from a negligible amount to peak at 13 billion bushels in 1860.1 It is important to understand the rapid nature of settlement to contextualize life in rural Upper Canada. From 1805-1840, the population increased by over eight hundred percent.2 Many of these were Irish emigrants, even in the period preceding the famine; these pre-Famine Irish emigrants were predominantly “middling farmers,” «c'est à dire des fermiers cultivant des terres petites ou moyennes, ceux qui ont été le plus durement touchés par la baisse soudaine des prix des produits agricoles à la fin des guerres napoléoniennes [en Europe]».3 Many of the emigrants settled into townships and villages on the agricultural frontier, such as the Biddul...
The social and economic differences that divided the Family Compact and the common people of Canada can be traced back early immigration into Canada and a the socio-economic divides that rose before, during and after the period of rapid population growth that Canada underwent from 1815-1840. Before this period of po...
Early efforts to address child welfare were made when Charles Loring Brace, founder of the Children’s Aid Society established lodging houses and industrial schools, to care for neglected, orphaned and abandoned children and provide these children with shelter and moral education. However many of the children were not actually orphaned or being neglected they were simply poor (Warren, 1998).
Robert, Jean-Claude, Dr. "Immigration Acts (1866 - 2001)." Canada in the Making. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2013. .
When the Italians came to Canada, they had many Obstacles moving into a different area. In 1901, many articles were revealed about Italians labors being unfair at work. Labors were misled through this system at labor camps or find themselves unemployed and were not considered labors in many Canada’s major cities. In 1902, the government of Italy sent a tour to report on Italian’s workers in Canada. This report talked about the harsh problems labors to suffer in Canada so, the Italian government suggested that Italian migration to Canada should be suspended. After WW1, the Canadian government took a legal action to immigration. A new law passed to decrease th...
Ninette Kelley and M. J. Trebicock, The Making of the Mosaic: a history of Canadian immigration policy. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1998).
Before the Industrial Revolution, According to Carolyn Tuttle’s Child Labor during the British Industrial Revolution. Children working in homes became apprentices, domestic servants, chimney sweeps, or assistants in the family business, while children who lived in farms tended to the animals and the fields. Children, as apprentices, lived and worked with their master who established a workshop and the children trained in the trade rather than earn
British citizens were the preferred immigrants because they embodied the ideal citizen of the nation-state (white, Anglo-Saxon). It was a known fact that the Canadian government “would seek only those vigorous northern races who were culturally sound and who could quickly conform to the norms of Anglo-Canadian life” (Avery 93). This racial advantage allowed them much power to influence work, social and political life” (Avery 95).
...Coast of Canada gave a great deal of their life’s energy to the building of the infrastructure of Canada. All of the early pioneers came to Canada prepared to work hard in order to send money back home to support their families and to build new lives in Canada. In many cases, this was a long and lonely sacrifice and few experienced support from the white settlers or received protection from the government. In almost every situation, the Asians were paid less than the whites and had no rights or privileges in the new country. Little by little, they were denied until eventually, immigration was rejected altogether separating families and leaving individual alienated from their loved ones. Thousands of men and women sacrificed and endured a great deal of pain in order to be accepted as citizens of Canada. Their stories are a vital part of the history of the West.
The creation of the Residential Schools is now looked upon to be a regretful part of Canada’s past. The objective: to assimilate and to isolate First Nations and Aboriginal children so that they could be educated and integrated into Canadian society. However, under the image of morality, present day society views this assimilation as a deliberate form of cultural genocide. From the first school built in 1830 to the last one closed in 1996, Residential Schools were mandatory for First Nations or Aboriginal children and it was illegal for such children to attend any other educational institution. If there was any disobedience on the part of the parents, there would be monetary fines or in the worst case scenario, trouble with Indian Affairs.
Canada has continuously served as a home to immigrants and refugees from decade to decade harbouring people from a variety of cultural and ethnic backgrounds. The first set of immigrants to settle in the country came from Britain, the United States and from other nationalities mostly including immigrants from Europe who were either desperate to escape from religious or political turmoil or were simply attracted to Canada’s economic promise. Soon after the Canadian confederation in 1867, immigrants from Irish and Chinese backgrounds who occupied most of the country were used as workers and the demand for labourers to develop the country increased rapidly as more Chinese descents were imported to build the Canadian Pacific Railway. Although, Canada opened its doors to immigrants, but the country also intended to gain human resources for work in the farms, in the forests, factories and mines but not everyone was equally welcomed in Canada.
Migration in the Early 20th century to America was scary in many ways; mothers feared losing their children to American Institutes. Some mothers felt American education made children, “persons of leisure” (Ewen, 1985). Mother’s felt that schools set their children up to loses; they felt their daughters were needed at home to help with hous...
In the year 1562, there were laws enacted that allowed the placement of poor children into care services until they were old enough to care for themselves. When the idea came to the U.S. not many children liked the idea of being placed into a foster home. They were often abused and exploited. However, this was allowed by law and the homes were considered better for the children because unlike almshouses children were taught different trades, and were not constantly exposed to bad surrounding and immature adults. Various forms of indenturing children persisted into the first decade of the century. Benjamin Eaton became the nation’s first foster child in the year 1636, he was 7 years old.
Imagine waking up at five in the morning to walk over a mile to a factory where you work until noon where you get a half hour break for lunch, then it’s back to work until nine or ten at night, when you are finally allowed to go home and you are only eight years old. Today that seems unimaginable, but during the early 19th century it was the everyday life of thousands of children whose ages range from as young as five until you died. During the Industrial Revolution many children were required to work dangerous jobs to help their families.
Children are now welcomed to earth as presents bundled in pinks and blues. In the 1800’s children were treated as workers straight from the womb. Children trained early in age to perform unbearable tasks (Ward 3). Imagine how it felt to be unwanted by a parent and sold to a master who also cared nothing about them. Many children earned a few pennies by becoming chimney sweeps or working in the streets running errands, calling cabs, sweeping roads, selling toys or flowers and helping the market porters (Ward 3). The young children did not have much choice on which job (life) they wanted, but by far sweeping chimneys was the most dangerous. The children were forced into confined areas filled with comb webs, where they sacrificed their lives to clean. William Blake does a great job depicting hardship of children in the 1800’s in “The Chimney Sweeper” through the use of diction and imagery.