Why were women and children forced to work during the Industrial Revolution?
1 Answer
Poverty and a lack of farm work
Explanation:
When the American industrial revolution began in the 1830s there was an excess of labor on American farms, particularly in New England where the rocky soil limited the amount of farming that could be done.
When the first large factories appeared in Lowell MA there was an immediate need for reliable and cheap labor. The farmers of New Hampshire, primarily, sent their daughters to work in the mills and send home as much money as they could. ( The Lowell Offfering by Eisler) & (Women at Work by Thomas Dublin).
After the Civil War there was a second industrial revolution which peaked around 1910. American mills were expanding at a high rate, higher than the local labor pool could support. Starting around 1890 there was an influx of immigrants to the U.S., first the Germans, French Canadians and Belgians who were followed by the Italians and Poles. American industrial cities pushed these people into clusters of poverty in the Northeast, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Chicago. They had left their homelands impoverished only to find poverty in America as well.
In most states the minimum working age for children was 14 and families were quick to put their children to work to help support the family. In the south, however, children as young as 8 were known to work the mills. The picture below was taken in Macon Georgia.
