was needed to work, and often children would be put to use in factories in unsafe…
Coming out of the Age of Enlightenment, Europeans were filled with new ideas regarding economics. Grouped with those ideas was a desire to increase production and innovation. This is what ushered in the Industrial Revolution, a rapid development of industry in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries. From the beginning of the revolution in the late 1700's, all ages and both genders were used as workers in mills and factories. More so than in previous eras, children were common employees alongside their elders. Being children, though, their needs were often overlooked or ignored completely. For the most part, the working conditions of children during the Industrial Revolution were extremely harsh and they received poor treatment. However, some…
The labor was demanding and unfair. Children had to join the workforce to help support their families. Most of them worked in textile factories and were paid less than adults. The states tried to enforce laws that set a minimum age for labor, but most of the youth refused to acknowledge them.(Greenwood, 62)…
Going back to the colonial days, there was considerable concern about poor families and how they would be cared for. But it was English policies, brought to America by the expatriate colonists, that set the stage for the approach to what were basically “child welfare” issues. In England, the Elizabethan Poor Law of 1601 was the most influential of the British approaches to dealing with the poor. The Elizabethan Poor Law directed parents to accept responsibility for the support of their children. Furthermore, the Elizabethan Poor Law not only held parents, particularly fathers, liable for supporting their children, but also contained a belief that child poverty resulted from the moral failings of parents (Grossberg, 2002). There were also three aspects of the influence of Elizabethan Poor Law that colonists carried with them to the New World. One was a belief that poor families were a local problem. Second, the notion that families had responsibility for supporting their children. And, three, that there was a distinction between the deserving poor and the undeserving poor, and this distinction had to do with ideas of work, gender, and age (Grossberg, 2002). Colonists felt better about contributing funds to help the deserving poor; they were less willing to help the undeserving…
Elizabeth Scott (2008) paints an especially revealing picture of the progressive reforms around the beginning of the 20th century. The goal for the progressive reformers at that time was to support the lives of children through various reforms. The juvenile court was only one of the reforms promoted by these progressive reformers. Others included compulsory school attendance laws, restrictions on child labor, and the creation of a child welfare system (Scott, 2008). However, the reformers had a problem. They needed to present to the public a portrait of children as young, innocent, vulnerable, and dependent. This was easier when it came to children working in factories under horrible and unsafe conditions. It was a much harder sell with, say,…
In the 1800s there was a large increase of immigrants coming to America, starting with the Irish in the 1840s and proceeding after 1880 with people from southern and eastern Europe. Many of these families had kids and at the time many of these immigrants needed money and weren't against child labor. So these new immigrants would send their kids to work.…
During the Industrial Revolution children worked extreme hours in very bad working conditions for very low pay, even less than what adults were paid. The Idea was that children were useful as laborers because of their usually small size. It allowed them to move in small spaces in factories or mines where most adults wouldn’t fit. They were easier to control and manage compared to adults. These children were most likely working to help support their families…
In the beginning of the 20th century, over two million laborers consisted of children under the age of twelve, contributing to over twenty-five percent of total workers (Trattner). The conditions children worked in were generally filthy, hazardous, and detrimental to their health. Committees arose and fought for reforms by enlightening the public through the use of dramatic photography, distressing posters, and personalized letters (Child…
In 1840 Irish immigrants immigrated to America which gave way to many new child workers. Child immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe came later and also had to work to earn money for the family in the new world. POVERTY. Laws…
Industry was thriving throughout the 19th century; farms were transformed into cities and work places which created a large work force- that even children as young as six was employed to work in mines and factories. There were a couple major problems that came with the idea of child labor. First, they were given empty promises to convince them to work in the factories. The children were promised good food, shelter, given better education, and a better living standard, but they were simply tricks to lure the kids in to work for them. Secondly, the children were underpaid.…
Social Welfare is defined as being programs that are run by government to promote the well being of its citizens. Throughout the history of the United States Social Welfare programs have been subject to many changes, due to the changing philosophies of Us Citizens.…
In early history society viewed child welfare as the churches responsibility. In colonial times society started viewing children as dependents and created institutions called Almshouses which forced children in the same category as the elderly and mentally disabled. In the 19th century child welfare was addressed with the first juvenile reformatory in America the House of refuge for juvenile delinquents in New York. However it wasn’t an improvement from the almshouses but it did help society view children as the vulnerable and deserving group in society which…
When The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, the three main goals of this legislation involve the children who are in or are going to be in the foster care. These three goals are safety, well-being, and permanency. These goals are of the upmost importance when it comes to the foster care system because it gives the children an opportunity to settle into their new environment with stability and comfort in the most traumatic times. The first and most important goal is safety. The children who are placed in foster care are usually children who have been removed from an unsafe situation, and are placed with (hopefully) family members, or trained individuals on the foster care system (foster parents, group homes, etc.) need to be in a safe environment. A safe environment can include limited to no contact with the abusers themselves, or complete removal from the situation itself. Well-being is another important aspect of the foster care system that provides the children with options to better themselves and to acquire counseling while also providing support to help the child understand what has happened. The final aspect of the system is permanency. While it is important to know the cold is safe and their well being is taken care of, we have to be aware that the child is not going to be stable until they are placed in a permanent residence which is hopefully with a family member or a foster home. If the child is placed in a foster home it is a hopeful outcome that the foster family be willing to adopt the child if the situation arises.…
The purpose of this essay is to discuss the effects of child poverty in the United States. The…
In America today life for children seems to be better than it has been in the past. There is so much media focused on the family. There are so many child welfare agencies, and advocates focused on the enrichment of a child’s pshyical, medical, and emotional well being. While there are still cases of child abuse documented and horrific crimes are committed on children, there are agencies in place to help prevent these types of tradgeties. In the United States slavery is almost unheard of anymore. Child slavery is even less heard of. This is not the case in other Countries. The nation of Haiti which is located in the West Indies, occuping the western third of the island of Hispaniola, in the Caribbean Sea has a horrific problem with child slavery. The practice of slavery ended in Haiti in 1804, with the nation becoming the first independent nation in Latin America. However in the present slavery is growing in the culture, it has even been given a name “restavek” translated to stay with. Restavek accounts for hundreds of thousands of child slaves, who are abused, and treated poorly. Most of these slave children will end up homeless, or end up dead, an aweful life and a traject ending.…