Child Labor Diaries

For your writing assignment, you will practice doing some creative writing, taking on the role of a child laborer during the Industrial Revolution. Though you will be writing fiction, you will be expected to incorporate facts and evidence from the unit in order to make your writing realistic for the time period. Each diary entry should be at least one good paragraph (5-8 sentences).

NOTE: The questions are meant to guide you and help you think about what to write. Your diary entries should not just be a list of answers to these questions. You should be creative and your writing should flow naturally. You do not need to answer the questions in order.

Entry 1: Describe your character.

• • What is your name?

  • How old are you?

  • Where do you live?

  • What do you do for work?

  • Who is in your family?

  • What do your family members do for work?

  • What do you want for your future? What goals do you have for your life?

Entry 2: Describe a typical day in your life.

• • What time do you wake up?

  • What do you do throughout the day?

  • What kinds of things do you hear/see/smell at work?

  • How much time do you spend working?

  • Do you have leisure time in the evenings?

  • How do you feel about your life? Do you like it? Do you wish you were doing something else?

"Many parents were unwilling to allow their children to work in these new textile factories. To overcome this labour shortage factory owners had to find other ways of obtaining workers. One solution to the problem was to buy children from orphanages and workhouses. The children became known as pauper apprentices. This involved the children signing contracts that virtually made them the property of the factory owner."

Entry 3: Describe the conditions where you live.

• • What is your house like? Who lives in it?

  • Do you have your own room?

  • Do you own a lot of stuff?

  • What is your neighborhood like?

  • Is your neighborhood a safe place to live? Why or why not?

  • Do you like living in your neighborhood?

  • What could be done to improve life in your neighborhood?

"In the country, the rain would have developed a thousand fresh scents, and every drop would have had its bright association with some beautiful form of growth or life. In the city, it developed only foul stale smells, and was a sickly, lukewarm, dirt- stained, wretched addition to the gutters." - Charles Dickens from Little Dorrit

"It was market-morning. The ground was covered, nearly ankle-deep, with filth and mire; a thick steam, perpetually rising from the reeking bodies of the cattle, and mingling with the fog, which seemed to rest upon the chimney-tops, hung heavily above. All the pens in the centre of the large area, and as many temporary pens as could be crowded into the vacant space, were filled with sheep; tied up to posts by the gutter side were long lines of beasts and oxen, three or four deep. Countrymen, butchers, drovers, hawkers, boys, thieves, idlers, and vagabonds of every low grade, were mingled together in a mass; the whistling of drovers, the barking dogs, the bellowing and plunging of the oxen, the bleating of sheep, the grunting and squeaking of pigs, the cries of hawkers, the shouts, oaths, and quarrelling on all sides; the ringing of bells and roar of voices, that issued from every public-house; the crowding, pushing, driving, beating, whooping and yelling; the hideous... din that resounded from every corner of the market." - Charles Dickens from Oliver Twist

Entry 4: Describe your reaction to the rise of communism.

• • What do you think about communism?

  • What do you think about capitalism?

  • What would your life be like under a communist system? How would it be different?

  • Would you support a communist revolution? Why or why not?

"In a communist system, the working class would rise up against the wealthy factory owners and industrialists, killing or displacing them. The factories they ran would be reclaimed by the people to be operated by the government for the benefit of all people. Workers would continue to labor in factories, but their pay would increase. In the government-run factory, the owners would not be greedy for the profits; instead, the government would share the profits equally with the workers, raising their quality of life. In addition, all businesses and services would be government-run, providing essential goods and services to the people without the high prices common under capitalism... However, this equality came at a cost. Some essential freedoms enjoyed under capitalism would be taken away. Choices about education, employment, religion and marriage were often taken away from citizens, as they were forced to adjust to a new system with stronger government control. Communism would bring social and economic equality to a country, but at the cost of living under a system with total government control."