Industrialization is an amazing thing that came with a great price. Child labor was probably one of the greatest costs of industrialization. In Europe, many children faced terrible conditions while working for very little wages. The children worked because their families needed more money in order to survive. They would often be seriously reprimanded for mistakes with harder working conditions or beatings. The children would get very short breaks and had very long hours, up to sixteen hours a day. These long days prevented them from getting an education or much sleep. The days were filled with strenuous work around dangerous machines that would injure the children and sometimes even end their lives. The children would also get illnesses or diseases occasionally from breathing in coal dust in coal mines or cotton particles in textile factories. "Here is a slender little boy...this boy looks ninety. He is a dwarf; twelve years old, he appears seven, no more...He sweeps the cotton and lint form (I am pretty sure they meant to say "from") the mill aisles from 6pm to 6am without a break in the night's routine. He stops his own accord, however, to cough or expectorate (spit) - he has advanced tuberculosis." (A quote from the Southern Textile Workers, 1903*) The many lives that were ended and stolen from these youth were a price that was paid in order for the industrialization of the world we live in today.
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In Japan, the harsh working conditions as well as the very low wages characterized the work of the textile factories. Many of the hands-on jobs were given to the women in the factory, where they would have to spend their time working with their hands in very hot water in order to get the silk from the cocoons of silk worms. These hours spent retrieving silk in the hot water would earn them very little wages. Each day, they would earn enough to buy approximately the food they would eat in the day. Their long hours for so little with the harsh working conditions made life for the women in particular very difficult and troublesome.
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Inequality of the social classes is also another major effect that came with industrialization. In India, the British who came to help industrialize India treated the native people very poorly. Many of the British that came were of higher standing in regards to wealth and status, and most of the people they treated so poorly were those who were poor or not considered wealthy. Though this may not have been viewed as inequality of social classes, ultimately, that is what it was. The Indian people did not get nearly the same treatment as the British that came over to India. The British were pampered and treated much like the wealthy upper class while the Indian people continued to live in pollution and low quality housing. The British also, much like the upper class, used Indian capital for themselves and took much of the natural resources. The British were walking over the Indian people and using the Indian's labor for their own benefit .
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- If you desire to know more about child labor, follow this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV3JO_RYIDE to see some of the letters that working children wrote during this time
- *Follow the link to go the Southern Textile Workers, 1903 pdf https://buckingham.schoolloop.com/file/1471331307901/1471331306625/1645101644409616283.pdf?filename=Southern%2BTextile%2BWorkers%2B1903.pdf
- For a visual movie representation of the unsocial classes between the British and the Indian, wacth A Passage to India. EMI/HBO/Braybourne-Goodwin, 1983.
- More information about child labor can be found at "Child Labor During the English Industrial Revolution." Child Labor during the Industrial Revolution. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2016.
- More information about Japanese textile workers can be found at Http://soas.academia.edu/HelenMacnaughtan. "A History of Textile Workers in Japan, 1650-2000." Academia.edu. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2016.
- The information for this page was found at https://buckingham.schoolloop.com/file/1471331307901/1471331306625/1645101644409616283.pdf?filename=Southern%2BTextile%2BWorkers%2B1903.pdf, Indian Nationalist Dadabhai Naoroji, Essays, Speeches, Addresses and Writings, Molescroftprimary. "Diary of a Victorian Child Worker 1." YouTube. YouTube, 08 Mar. 2013. Web. 12 Nov. 2016., and https://buckingham.schoolloop.com/file/1471331307901/1471331306625/8245447595502936313.pdf?filename=Industrialization%2Bin%2BJapan.pdf.