The Negative Impact of Industrialization on Children in Mahews The Watercress Girl :: Watercress Girl Essays

The Negative Impact of Industrialization on Children in Mahews The cresson GirlThe age of Industrialization brought about umteen enlightening changes to urban society. The technical innovations of the machine age and the inventions of mass transition (railroad) brought muckle in droves to the cities, forcing herd unsanitary conditions. The increased need for workers localize women and children into the workforce, providing cheap labor, but resulting in inhumane working conditions and some of the welt evils of the factory system, in which workers, including children, toiled for up to sixteen hours a day, six days a week, under inhuman conditions deafening noise, poor ventilation, dangerous machinery... (Longman, p. 1818). Even though the industrial revolution brought about more jobs, periodic economic depressions resulted in unemployment. (Longman, p. 1819)The suffering of the children was by further the worst of societys ills. Henry Mahews four mint London Labour and the Lond on Poor (1851) depicts the plight of the common people in the aftermath of the industrialization of Londons society. He interviewed hundreds of Londons poor and gave voice to the bury workers, particularly the children, who earned meager subsistence from hawking goods, begging, performing, and providing various services, from running errands to prostitution. (Longman, p. 1838)The Watercress Girl is an account from Henry Mahews four volume works. It symbolizes the harsh human beings of child labor and the pathetic conditions in which many of the poor lived. The cress green girl, as many of the urban poor children, had lived in her short spirit such conditions as to virtually have no childhood. She skipped those years and went straightaway into womanhood, by virtue of all that she had done and seen, ..although only eight years of age, had entirely lost all childish ways, and was, indeed, in thoughts and manner, a woman. (Longman, p. 1838) different references indicate that she was far beyond her years, that the life she had led thus far had aged her considerably, her little face, pale and thin with privation, was wrinkled where the dimples ought to have been, and she would suspiration frequently. (Longman, p. 1838)The children of this time did not have the leisure to enjoy their youth. Hard times, starvation, crowded conditions prevented children from their inherent right to youth. Frequently, children too young to work in the factories took manage of even younger children, before that, I had to take care of a baby for my aunt.