HIST 1080 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Child Labour, Social Control
26 Nov 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Friday November 9, 2018
~ HIST 1080 – Growing up in North America ~
Lecture 9
* Children at Labour *
Exam:
→ One - hour midterm
→ December 6 from 2 pm to 3pm
→ Exam Review: maybe 10: 30 – 11
Child Labour & Course Themes:
→ Age as a category of Analysis
o Who is a child worker?
o What is the appropriate age for a child to work?
→ Childhood as a social construction
o Whether a child should be economically useful and contribute to the family
o Children are physically and emotionally vulnerable
→ Differences and similarities across classes & cultures
→ Social control (victimization) vs. children’s agency
→ Continuity and change
Children of the City – Nasaw:
→ Time Period: 1880s, 1890s to the early 1920s
Working children: From family asset to social problem:
→ Irony: industrialization depends on child labour, but also heightens concerns about it
→ Mid 1920s: all provinces have school attendance laws; most exclude children under 14 from
factories and mines
→ Reorientation of family economy:
o 1900: children worked, so mothers could stay home
o 2018: mothers work, so children don’t have to
▪ Why? Economic and cultural explanations … and expectations
Concerns about Children Working in Industry:
→ Children are suffocating their breathing by working in factories and mines
o They are breathing in dust, and are working in a dirty environment (i.e. cotton on the floor)
→ School became compulsory throughout the years, thus children attended school for 6 hours a day
then went to work in the afternoon
→ Compulsory school attendance highly relates to child labour
→ Children had to work for money, and their families need income
Document Summary
~ hist 1080 growing up in north america ~ December 6 from 2 pm to 3pm. Exam review: maybe 10: 30 11. Childhood as a social construction: whether a child should be economically useful and contribute to the family, children are physically and emotionally vulnerable. Differences and similarities across classes & cultures. Time period: 1880s, 1890s to the early 1920s. Working children: from family asset to social problem: Irony: industrialization depends on child labour, but also heightens concerns about it. Mid 1920s: all provinces have school attendance laws; most exclude children under 14 from factories and mines. Children are suffocating their breathing by working in factories and mines: they are breathing in dust, and are working in a dirty environment (i. e. cotton on the floor) School became compulsory throughout the years, thus children attended school for 6 hours a day then went to work in the afternoon. Compulsory school attendance highly relates to child labour.
