Child Labour in 19th Century England

For our presentation we have chosen to do it on Child Labour in England during the 19th century. Within this post we are going to present our interpretation on the poem "The Steam Loom Weaver" and also share with you a video that summarizes child labour during the Industrial Revolution in England.

This is our interpretation of the poem “The Steam Loom Weaver” (c. 1830) (author Unknown)

This poem seems to be a lot more upbeat and happier when regarding the working world of England in the 19th century. The speakers talks about the loom being out of order like it is just another general problem and does not seem to worried about the consequences of not working when things are broken. Like we heard from Elizabeth Bentley when she was talking about her working life, if you did not do your job fast enough or did not do it to the level that your boss wanted it then you were given the strap and that really hurt. The speaker does not seem to concerned and a lot happier then what would be expected from workers of mills in England in the 19ht century.

In the video mentioned below, they mention that when a machine breaks that it is not time off but time that will be added to your shift. Unlike in the poem where it seems like it is a time to relax and to take a break, in reality when a machine broke down you would have wanted to fix it as fast as possible and then get back to work going as fast as you could to make up for the time lost.

This clip summarizes the beginnings of child labour during the Industrial Revolution in England.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xgu61a_victorian-child-labour_lifestyle

This is brought to you by Jonathan and Chris! Thank you!

"Victorian Child labour." Flog It!. 2001. Daily Motion. Web. Transcript. 3 Feb.
2011. xgu61a_victorian-child-labour_lifestyle>.

"The Steam Loom Weaver." 2007. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature:
Concise Edition. Vol. B. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2008. 572.
Print.

Child Labour Presentation

By: Victoria Burleigh

My half of the presentation was to provide general information about labour in Britain in the 19^th century. For my blog entry, I chose to inform you all of the current child labour around the world. The objective of this is to show you that the laws pertaining to inhumane labour has not improved excessively, or rather the actions taken to ensure the regulations are followed are not substantial.

Currently child labour is considered a violation of human rights and is illegal, according to wealthier countries; however some undeveloped countries around the world do allow, or tolerate child labour. Most commonly we consider child labour to be in countries far away from our Western world. Unexpectedly, I found an article concerning child labour in China, supposedly a very wealthy country.

In 2005 Megan Grau wrote an article concerning child slave labour in China. The International Labour Organization (ILO), which is an organization responsible for supervising international labour standards, estimated that 250 million children between the ages of five and fourteen work in developing countries. Among these numbers 61 percent are in Asia. Despite the current regulations against child labour, it is a current issue in China.

These children are forced to work in sweatshops, with extreme exploitation, meaning they are used for merely selfish, profitable ends. These conditions include the lack of accessible living, extreme discipline and inhumane working conditions. The wages they are forced to live on do not pay for their forlorn living expenses, therefore these children and their families are forced to reside in a never-ending nightmare of a cycle.

Grau explains that child labour is rapidly increasing, specifically around Hong Kong. The reasons for this is the massive amount of drop outs and expansions of foreign investment in the export driven enterprises; however there is evidence that school children are being exploited. The workforce in China for young children involves export industries such as garments, textiles, fireworks and toys. Yet, it seems that child labour does not happen anywhere near us, but you would be surprised.

In 2009, campaigners in the UK accused H & M and Zara retail businesses of using cotton suppliers in Bangladesh. Also, many of their raw materials originated from Uzbekistan, where children at the age of 10 are forced to work in the fields.

Even closer to home, in 2008 Commissioner David Neil found a meatpacking company in Postville, Iowa that had recently been investigated by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This company had actually employed 57 minors, some as young as 14, in violation of the state law prohibiting anyone under 18 from working in a meatpacking plant.

The main objection of this blog entry is to show you guys that child labour is still happening around the world, even as close as the country right next to us. Although it seems like it is not affecting us as we are not directly involved, it does have a very serious global effect.

I’ve also included a link for youtube. It is basically a slide show of pictures that will show you the extent of child labour. Hope you guys like it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJVPJDOYyCc&feature=related

Work Cited

Grau, Megan. “Child Slave Labor in China.” Ihscslnews.org. N.p. May 2005. Web. February
2011.

About the ILO. Ilo.org. N.P. 2011. Web. February 2011.

Child Labour. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. N.p. January 28, 2011. Web. February 2011.

Hello Everyone,

Michaela and I are also presenting on Monday on Industrialization and William Wordsworth's poem "The World is Too Much With Us." We will give a brief summary of what Industrialization is and then we will be relating the Industrial Revolution to both the poem we are discussing in tutorial and the poems for Wednesday's lecture. Below is a link we have found that summarizes and analyzes the poem "The World is Too Much With Us" which we will go over in tutorial and we will also supply this kind of summary for the other poems that we feel fit with the theme of Industrialization.

http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides3/WorldIsTooMuch.html

“The World is Too Much With Us” is a poem describing the negative aspects of industrialization. The poem praises nature and points out how the rise in materialism, productivity and commercial activity reduced one’s admiration of nature. For example in the poem it says that: “Getting and Spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!” (Black et al. 2008:142). We will discuss the contents of this poem and why this quote and others specifically relate to industrialization in our presentation tomorrow.

http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/tuttle.labor.child.britain

This website contains information regarding child labour during industrialization in England, and how children were exploited in large factories for cheap labour. This relates to "The World is Too Much With Us" because Wordsworth discusses the negative impacts of industrialization and how it caused damange to humans (especially people that were exploited in factories).

We look forward to discussing this information in depth with you on Monday.

Works Cited

Eds. Black, Jose, Leonard Collony, Kate Flint, Isobel Grundy, Don LePan, Roy Liuzza, Jerome xxxxJ, McGann, Anne Lake Prescott, Barry V. Qualls, Claire Waters. The Broadview Anthology xxxxof British Literature, Concise Edition, Volume B. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, xxxx2008.

Randi & Michaela

"The World is Too Much With Us"

Hello there,
Alexandra and I are presenting on Monday for the William Wordsworth poem "The World is Too Much Within Us" and I found online an interesting and helpful start to understanding the poem:

http://www.wsu.edu/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/wordsworth.html

This link will not only give you a bit of background on the poem concerning some of Wordsworth's themes and literary ideologies but will also help to clarify some of the references that should come in handy when we analyze the poem on Monday.

I hope you find it useful and that it helps to clarify some of Wordsworth's poem, the rest we'll take a look at in Monday as a class.

Cheers, Alexa and Alexandra.