Child Labor in 1800s
Imagine you’re a six year boy, who instead of going to school for an education, you’re working fifteen hour shifts in dangerous working conditions just to help support your family. This was the case in the 1800’s for children living in the United States. For years the glass-bottle industry had been taking advantage of children by having them work in terrible conditions. Some of the concerns surrounding child labor were the long hours, hazardous working conditions, and the strenuous work for a low wage. To begin with, the children were made to work long shifts without any break. The children had to maintain a high-speed pace under a heated atmosphere. If one hour of trotting in pure air tires a healthy fourteen year old, one can only imagine how exhausted the children were in these conditions. Also, the “blower dogs” as they were called, worked in an unsafe environment. Many of the boys were reported to have burn marks from working in such extreme heat. These young boys were also taken advantage of because they were just paid forty cents a day, and gave the money they earned to their “guardians.” There were many things that could have been done to solve the problems of the blower dogs. A solution for the long hours they worked could have been done to solve the problems of the blower dogs. A solution for the long hours they worked could have been a law that states children cannot work for more than six hours. Another solution could have been a law passed raising the amount of the children’s wage, to ensure the boys earned a fair wage. Also the factories should not have allowed children to work in areas where they could get harmed, to ensure their