'Is this a holy thing to see
In a rich and fruitful land,
Babes reduced to misery,
Fed with cold and usurious hand?
Is that trembling cry a song?
Can it be a song of joy?
And so many children poor?
It is a land of poverty.'
William Blake, Holy Thursday, Songs of Experience 1794
The children of poor people probably has more chance of knowing real misery in the late 18th and 19th centuries than children at any previous period. During the late 17th and early 18th centuries Britain and America began the gradual transformation from agricultural to industrial states. The process was accompanied by an ever-widening division between the labourers who actually produced wealth and those who employed them. As the whole population increased so did the actual numbers of the poor. There are very useful accounts of child poverty in Britain in Pinchbeck and Hewitt's Children in English Society, 1969 and the Webb's English Local Government: English Poor Law History, 1929, while Robert Bremner's Children and Youth in America: A Documentary History , 1600-1932, American Public Health Association, 1970, is an invaluable source of information on child labour in America, with many quotations from original documents of the time.
Adam Smith in his Inquiry into the causes of the Wealth of Nations, first published in 1766, lays stress on the demand for labour in the expanding American economy, which led to children being highly valued: 'Labour is there so well rewarded that a numerous family of children, instead of being a burden, is a source of opulence and prosperity to the parents. The labour of each child before it can leave their house is computed to be worth a hundred pounds clear gain to them...' He goes on to say that whereas in Europe a poor widow left with several children to support faced poverty and was to be pitied, in America she would be sought after since her children were a potential source of wealth.
It was demand for cheap labour, particularly in the South, that led to and sustained the slave trade. The children of slaves were valued as potential additions to the labour force and sources of wealth for their masters, and although not all black people in America were necessarily slaves, children born of slave mothers were born slaves themselves, regardless of the status of their fathers, a law which undermined the moral structure of the family as it encouraged unscrupulous masters to abuse their female slaves and released the men from their natural obligations to their children. Many plantation owners kept slave families together, seeing the advantages of a stable family life in keeping the work force contented, and recognising the importance of family ties. Good masters hesitated to sell children away form their parents and frequently large families would be built up on one plantation.
In many ways the living conditions of American slaves were better than those of British factory workers at the same date, for their masters had a vested interest in keeping them contented and in good health since they represented a very valuable capital investment, which the free labourer did not. After the American Civil War, when slavery was abolished in the USA, white southerners looked back nostalgically to conditions on pre-Civil War plantations: 'When I remember that throng of well-fed, pump and happy coloured people, and compare it with the ragged and destitute communities common among the freed men of today, the contrast is a sad one.' (A belle of the fifties. Memoirs of Mrs. Clay of Alabama...1853-1866. Heinemann, 1905 p.221) It seems that freedom did not bring Black Americans the advantages that had been hoped for, and that, at least in the period immediately after the Civil War their conditions considerably worsened.
Nevertheless slave families knew no real security. The suffering when children were sold away from their families was immense. In 1774, just before the American War of independence won freedom from British rule, the Massachussetts slaves petitioned the British governor and Massachussetts general court for their freedom. They petitioned: 'Our children are also taken from us by force and sent maney(sic) miles from us wear we seldom or ever see them again there to be made slaves of for Life which sumtimes is vere short by Reson of Being dragged from their mothers Breest.' (Herbert G. Gutman The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925 Oxford, Blackwell, 1976 p,.350)
Josiah Henson, on whom Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom is supposedly based, was sent, with the rest of his family, to auction after the death of his owner. He was about five: (My brothers and sisters were bid off one by one, while my mother, holding my hand, looked on in an agony of grief, the cause of which I but ill understood at first.'( Bremner Vol. 1, p.377: The Life of Josiah Henson, as narrated by himself, Boston, 1845 p 1-5.)
Frederick Douglass, orator and Abolitionist, probably like many Black American children, only remembered seeing his mother four or five times. She was a field hand and went back to her work soon after he was born, and died when he was seven. He says: 'She made her journeys to see me in the night, travelling the whole distance on foot, after the performance of her day's work.' (Bremner, op. cit. vol 1. p.374 Quarles, Benjamin ed. Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass written by himself. Cambridge Mass, Harvard U.P. 1960 1st pub. 1845 ) Douglass, like many others, was cared for in a communal creche like the one on Senator Hammond's plantation, described by Mrs. Clay: 'there is a separate house where the children, especially the babies, are left to be fed and cared for while their mothers are at work.' (Clay op.cit. p. 216) What was the situation after slavery was abolished?
In America the demand for child workers increased after the Civil War as a consequence of the abolition of slavery; children quickly became an alternative form of cheap labour, particularly in the South.
Working conditions for children, however, although far from ideal, never reached the abysmal level found in Britain in the early 19th century. In America cotton mills, for example, children were not exploited to the same extent as in Britain. The first cotton mill opened in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1791, and industrialisation rapidly spread throughout New England. Children aged four to ten were employed, as in Britain, on tasks suited to small nimble fingers at a rate of 50c a week or less. In 1814, for comparison, according to Bremner, company stores were charging 23c per lb for sugar. However, the mill owners generally were more concerned for the children's morals and education than most British employers of child labour. Samuel Slater, who brought the plans of Arkwright's cotton mill machinery to America, also introduced Sunday schools on the lines of those in Arkwright's mills in Derbyshire. The first law requiring schooling for children working in factories was passed in Connecticut in 1813, long before equivalent British legislation. In 1817 the Address of the American Society for the Encouragement of Domestic Manufactures to the People of the United States stated that: 'We hazard nothing by the assertion, that some of the best educated of the poorer class in this country, are those brought up in factories, and such as would otherwise have been destitute of education altogether.' This may be rather too optimistic, but the standard of morals expected of employees is suggested by this advertisement for labour published in the Massachussetts Spy, March 8, 1820.: 'Wanted. At the Factory of Leland, Morse & Co. two or three FAMILIES of four or five children each. Those who are in the habit of profanity or Sabbath breaking, and intend to continue these practises, are invited not to make application.' (Quotations,Bremner op cit Vol 1 )
Harriet Robinson, campaigner for women's rights, wrote an account of her work in a Boston mill in the 1830s. Her father, a carpenter, died when she was six and her mother had four children to support. Harriet started as a "doffer" when she was ten: 'I can see myself now, racing down the alley, between the spinning-frames, carrying in front of me a bobbin-box bigger than I was. These mites had to be very swift in their movements, so as not to keep the spinning frames stopped long, and they worked only about fifteen minutes every hour. The rest of the time was their own.' They worked from 5am to 7pm and had half an your for breakfast and lunch. Most of the children lived at home, and they were both well fed and relatively well paid. (Bremner op.cit. Vol 1 p. 601: Harriet Robinson, Loom and spindle, or life among the early mill girls, Boston, 1898, p.60-61) She went on strike, aged eleven, over a cut in wages, but the mills gave her a steady wage and the chance of going to evening classes. (Wikipedia)
Andrew Carnegie, founder of many of our public libraries, also began his working life as a bobbin boy at age fourteen:'It was a hard life. In the winter father and I had to rise and breakfast in the darkness, reach the factory before it was daylight, and, with a short interval for lunch, work till after dark. The hours hung heavily on me.(Bremner op.cit. Vol 1 p.607-9: Andrew Carnegie, Autobiography, 1920)
Conditions were just as difficult for the children of the poor in Britain.
It was demand for cheap labour, particularly in the South, that led to and sustained the slave trade. The children of slaves were valued as potential additions to the labour force and sources of wealth for their masters, and although not all black people in America were necessarily slaves, children born of slave mothers were born slaves themselves, regardless of the status of their fathers, a law which undermined the moral structure of the family as it encouraged unscrupulous masters to abuse their female slaves and released the men from their natural obligations to their children. Many plantation owners kept slave families together, seeing the advantages of a stable family life in keeping the work force contented, and recognising the importance of family ties. Good masters hesitated to sell children away form their parents and frequently large families would be built up on one plantation.
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| Slave auction in Virginia (H.History webpage) |
Nevertheless slave families knew no real security. The suffering when children were sold away from their families was immense. In 1774, just before the American War of independence won freedom from British rule, the Massachussetts slaves petitioned the British governor and Massachussetts general court for their freedom. They petitioned: 'Our children are also taken from us by force and sent maney(sic) miles from us wear we seldom or ever see them again there to be made slaves of for Life which sumtimes is vere short by Reson of Being dragged from their mothers Breest.' (Herbert G. Gutman The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925 Oxford, Blackwell, 1976 p,.350)
Josiah Henson, on whom Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom is supposedly based, was sent, with the rest of his family, to auction after the death of his owner. He was about five: (My brothers and sisters were bid off one by one, while my mother, holding my hand, looked on in an agony of grief, the cause of which I but ill understood at first.'( Bremner Vol. 1, p.377: The Life of Josiah Henson, as narrated by himself, Boston, 1845 p 1-5.)
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| Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1852 |
Frederick Douglass, orator and Abolitionist, probably like many Black American children, only remembered seeing his mother four or five times. She was a field hand and went back to her work soon after he was born, and died when he was seven. He says: 'She made her journeys to see me in the night, travelling the whole distance on foot, after the performance of her day's work.' (Bremner, op. cit. vol 1. p.374 Quarles, Benjamin ed. Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass written by himself. Cambridge Mass, Harvard U.P. 1960 1st pub. 1845 ) Douglass, like many others, was cared for in a communal creche like the one on Senator Hammond's plantation, described by Mrs. Clay: 'there is a separate house where the children, especially the babies, are left to be fed and cared for while their mothers are at work.' (Clay op.cit. p. 216) What was the situation after slavery was abolished?
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| (Image source: Wikipedia) |
In the Southern States, however, until the Civil War the institution of slavery was rarely criticised and many autobiographies written immediately afterwards express this uncritical acceptance. Mrs. Clay of Alabama has already been quoted. Mark Twain said in his autobiography:'In my schooldays I had no aversion to slavery. I was not aware that there was anything wrong about it. (Autobiography, Harper Bros, 1924, Vol. 1, p.10-12) Like the other white children, he played with black children, but his first real awareness of a difference in their condition came when he complained to his mother about a little boy called Sandy whose singing was annoying him. His mother's eyes filled with tears as she told him Sandy had been sold 'halfway across the American continent...He will never see his mother again; if he can sing, I must not hinder it, but be thankful for it. If you were older, you would understand me; then that friendless child's noise would make you glad.' (Twain, op.cit)
In America the demand for child workers increased after the Civil War as a consequence of the abolition of slavery; children quickly became an alternative form of cheap labour, particularly in the South.
Working conditions for children, however, although far from ideal, never reached the abysmal level found in Britain in the early 19th century. In America cotton mills, for example, children were not exploited to the same extent as in Britain. The first cotton mill opened in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1791, and industrialisation rapidly spread throughout New England. Children aged four to ten were employed, as in Britain, on tasks suited to small nimble fingers at a rate of 50c a week or less. In 1814, for comparison, according to Bremner, company stores were charging 23c per lb for sugar. However, the mill owners generally were more concerned for the children's morals and education than most British employers of child labour. Samuel Slater, who brought the plans of Arkwright's cotton mill machinery to America, also introduced Sunday schools on the lines of those in Arkwright's mills in Derbyshire. The first law requiring schooling for children working in factories was passed in Connecticut in 1813, long before equivalent British legislation. In 1817 the Address of the American Society for the Encouragement of Domestic Manufactures to the People of the United States stated that: 'We hazard nothing by the assertion, that some of the best educated of the poorer class in this country, are those brought up in factories, and such as would otherwise have been destitute of education altogether.' This may be rather too optimistic, but the standard of morals expected of employees is suggested by this advertisement for labour published in the Massachussetts Spy, March 8, 1820.: 'Wanted. At the Factory of Leland, Morse & Co. two or three FAMILIES of four or five children each. Those who are in the habit of profanity or Sabbath breaking, and intend to continue these practises, are invited not to make application.' (Quotations,Bremner op cit Vol 1 )
Harriet Robinson, campaigner for women's rights, wrote an account of her work in a Boston mill in the 1830s. Her father, a carpenter, died when she was six and her mother had four children to support. Harriet started as a "doffer" when she was ten: 'I can see myself now, racing down the alley, between the spinning-frames, carrying in front of me a bobbin-box bigger than I was. These mites had to be very swift in their movements, so as not to keep the spinning frames stopped long, and they worked only about fifteen minutes every hour. The rest of the time was their own.' They worked from 5am to 7pm and had half an your for breakfast and lunch. Most of the children lived at home, and they were both well fed and relatively well paid. (Bremner op.cit. Vol 1 p. 601: Harriet Robinson, Loom and spindle, or life among the early mill girls, Boston, 1898, p.60-61) She went on strike, aged eleven, over a cut in wages, but the mills gave her a steady wage and the chance of going to evening classes. (Wikipedia)
Andrew Carnegie, founder of many of our public libraries, also began his working life as a bobbin boy at age fourteen:'It was a hard life. In the winter father and I had to rise and breakfast in the darkness, reach the factory before it was daylight, and, with a short interval for lunch, work till after dark. The hours hung heavily on me.(Bremner op.cit. Vol 1 p.607-9: Andrew Carnegie, Autobiography, 1920)
Conditions were just as difficult for the children of the poor in Britain.
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