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
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 five in
the morning to five at night. Sh...