Child labor first appeared with the establishment of
            
             the domestic system. The domestic system was a process
            
             through which entrepreneurs would purchace raw
            
             materials that would be "put out" to the homes of many
            
             families and be made into finished products that could be
            
             sold by the entrepreneurs. The families were paid by the
            
             piece, and so the adults would use their children to their
            
             fullest capability to aid in some way. The domestic system
            
             was prominent in England, on the Continent, and in North
            
             America during the 16th 17th and 18th centuries. This
            
             system still exists in some countries throughout the
            
             world.
            
             Along with the Industrial Revolution of the 18th
            
             century came a new ststem to replace the previous
            
             domestic system. The new system was the factory system.
            
             Children were used in this system from as young as the
            
             age of five. Children were used extensively to tend the
            
             machines. Children were also used in coal mines, from as
            
             young an age as six. These children would work long hours
            
             in the dark and damp mines, often carrying coal in packs on
            
             their backs up long ladders to the surface.
            
             During the 1830's the English Parliament decided to
            
             create an investigation into the mistreatment of child
            
             laborors. One child in a textile mill testified that he began
            
             working when he was eight years of age and since that
            
             time had been working from six o'clock in the morning to
            
             eight o'clock in the evening, with one hour to break at
            
             twelve o'clock in the afternoon. Sometimes, when business
            
             was brisk he would work a sixteen hour span from five in
            
             the morning to nine in the evening. When questioned on how
            
             he awoke and was on time for work, the boy said "I seldom
            
             did awake spontaineously; I was most generally awoke or
            
             lifted out of bed, sometimes asleep, by my parents." A girl
            
             who worked in the mines said that she worked from...