Child Labor
Activity 2, Strategy 1 Scoring Guide: Check for Understanding
- The Industrial Revolution created a need for cheap labor; unskilled labor did not require a formal education;
wages were low and families needed additional income
- Many people were unaware of the terrible conditions of child labor; pictures often have more of an impact on
the public then the printed word; seeing children working in these conditions instead of having a normal
childhood created sympathy for these children and outrage for what employers were doing to them in order
to save money.
- Supported responses should include a discussion of the issue of ”personal freedom”; and, whether
children and parents were able to exercise this right without some help from the government
- The same conditions now exist in these countries that existed in Great Britain and the United States:
poor working conditions, little or no chance of a formal education, families in need of
additional income to survive; many factory jobs have shifted to third world countries
because of an abundant supply of cheap labor; child labor is traditional in many countries.