the child labor debate
There is a long standing debate on whether children were being exploited during the Industrial Revolution between pessimists and optimists. Each side tried to prove that the other was wrong and get Parliament to take their side. Eventually the pessimists won, making long withstanding laws about child labor.
Pessimists like Frederick Engels (left), Leonard Horner (middle), and Karl Marx (right), were pessimists that believed manufactures during the Industrial Revolution hired children to work in factories and mines with conditions much worse on the farm or in the home. They argued that children were being exploited because they were hired as young as 5 or 6 years old and worked 12 to 16 hours, six days a week without breaks for meals. Children worked in hot, stuffy, overcrowded factories to earn as little as 4 shillings a piece. To support these claims, the sympathizers in Parliament hired a commission to collect evidence from these textile factories and mines. One of the most famous commissioners was Michael Sadler with the Sadler Reports (refer to Primary Resources for more information), hired to interview children, parents, overseers, factory owners, and doctors about the conditions in the workplace. The testimony's revealed a considerable amount of abuse were being stowed upon children, including being beaten, having their ears torn off, and being kicked if they talked, fell asleep, or were working too slow for the overseers liking.
Optimists like Andrew Ure (left) and T.S. Ashton (right) believed that The Sadler Reports were biased because they had been prepared before by a member of Parliament who were in favor of passing laws about child labor. They argued that factory inspectors and mine inspectors were focused on the worst examples of abuse to make their claims strong to present to Parliament. Optimists believed that the working conditions in factories or mines were no better than the working conditions in homes and working out of home brought back more wages. They also disagreed that children needed to work to develop a trade for adulthood, prevent idleness, and contribute to the family purse.