AMC Blog - Lycée Mona Ozouf de Ploërmel

The industrial revolution started around the year 1760, although it was a necessary and important step in our history, it had many controversies and nasty stories tied to it. Particularly the use of child labor. Children were used as workers in Britain during the industrial revolution, and in other countries during that time. Children under the age of 10 years old were usually not paid any wages, and children from the age of 10-14 were sometimes paid but not always.

Children working in these environments were often subject to violence, and many dangers, often deadly. There were many fatalities amongst children working during the industrial revolution. They were often mistreated, and treated as slaves, sometimes getting beaten for not working hard enough, or for taking breaks. These conditions were horrible, and not suitable for anyone to work in, certainy not children. The working environments also caused diseases, particularly lung based because of all the chemicals and bad air quality from the fumes.

Many workers had poor living conditions, and lived in houses stuck together, crowded, with poor sanitary conditions. THis was only at the beginning of the industrial revolution. Because machines quickly replaced most worker positions. The excessive use of fossel fuels such as coal made for a non eco friendly practice, (obviously people had no knowledge about any of that at that time)

The promise of work, and worker positions attracted many migrants, and led to overcrowding of certain industrial areas, creating more space for disease and other crowd based issues to arise.