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Child Labor

Driving Question: How did ideas about child labor evolve during the long nineteenth century?

Child labor became part of industrial life. Children worked long hours in dangerous jobs, and their stories helped spark a movement to rethink labor, rights, and the meaning of childhood.

Learning Objectives

  1. Analyze how shifts in ideas about childhood led to labor reforms in the long nineteenth century.
  2. Use the historical thinking skill of contextualization to examine the use of child labor and why perceptions changed during this era.

Vocab Terms:

  • activism
  • exploitation
  • industrial capitalism
  • literacy
  • reform
  • regulation
  • union
STEP 1

Opener: Child Labor

STEP 2

Children at Work

These materials will help you understand how child labor fit into the world of the Industrial Revolution—and how reformers began to push for change.

STEP 3

Life as a Child

Get a closer look at what factory life was like for working children, and learn about powerful testimonies that helped spark demands for reform.

The Life of Nailers External link

The life of nailers in Victorian England can tell us a great deal about how industrialists treated the working classes.
STEP 4

Closer: Child Labor

Learning to effectively parse questions will help you improve the arguments you create and the evidence you choose to support them with.

Extension Materials
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The data exploration below provides a chance to examine long-term global trends in child labor.
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Labor Data

The story of child labor extends beyond England, and, sadly, it extends beyond the long nineteenth century. This data exploration will help you understand how child labor changed, from the Industrial Revolution to the present.