428 Chapter 22
especially when considering gender. Women consti-
tuted nearly one-third of the labor force in York in
1851 (a typical figure for the nineteenth-century
economy), but barely 1 percent of working women
held jobs in factory manufacturing (see table 22.5).
Far more women—30 percent of working women—
worked in traditional handcraft manufacturing and
small shops. But the majority of the working women
of York labored in the century’s chief occupation for
women, domestic service. The middle-class prosperity
of industrialization, and the low wages paid to women
of the working class, created a market in which all
members of the middle class were expected to keep
household servants and even members of the lower
middle class, such as shopkeepers, could afford a cook
or a maid. Across Europe, the unmarried daughters of
the lower classes filled these posts; they often did so
eagerly because a servant’s post meant a more com-
fortable life than factory work did.
Although working women faced terrible exploita-
tion during industrialization, the treatment of working
children was even worse. In the agricultural society of
the Old Regime, children had worked as part of the
family economy, and they had begun farm work at an
early age. Urban children had traditionally left home to
become apprentices in their early teens, and some
trades took children at an earlier age. But none of these
experiences prepared observers for the exploitation of
children in the early industrial age.
Children were employed in mining as young as five
to seven years old. Mine owners argued that children
were needed because their size enabled them to fit into
tight places. Often, however, they were used for tasks
such as sorting coal or even to replace the ponies that
pulled ore carts (see illustration 22.1). Furthermore,
small wages were as important as small size. Studies of
child labor during industrialization have found that
these practices accounted for 15 percent to 20 percent
of mining labor. It was unhealthy, dangerous work, and
hundreds of children died in the mines each year. In
1838, for example, 122 British workers under the age of
eighteen died in the mines; fourteen were preteenage
children who died by falling down mineshafts, fifteen
died in mine collapses, thirteen died in gas explosions,
three drowned, and four were crushed by trams.
The factory age expanded this use of child labor.
Factories such as Josiah Wedgwood’s famous pottery
typically employed as much as 30 percent of their labor
force in workers under the age of eighteen. The textile
mills pushed that policy to new extremes. Studies have
found that the early British cotton mills averaged 40–50
percent of their labor force under the age of eighteen;
the worst offenders relied upon children for 70–80 per-
cent of their labor and strict discipline to keep the chil-
dren docile. A study of child labor in France in the
1840s (see table 22.6) found that textile mills employed
more than 72 percent of all child labor in France, and
both the cotton and woolen industries still relied upon
children for nearly 20 percent of their labor force. Eu-
ropean society initially permitted this treatment of chil-
dren because the prevalent political philosophy
(classical liberalism) and economic theory (laissez-faire
capitalism) both insisted that governments not inter-
vene in the economic process or regulate industries.The Standard of Living Debate
The subject of the exploitation of women and children
in the industrial economy raises one of the most heated
debates in modern historical scholarship, a controversy
known as the standard of living debate. On one side of
this debate, social historians depict the ghastly living
and working conditions of workers in the early indus-
trial age; on the other side, economic historians show a
steady improvement in the cost of living and the stan-
dards of living for the working class. The optimists look
back at the new industrial towns and see affordable
workers’ cafes in the bright illumination of Murdock’s
gaslights. When the pessimists look back, they smellPercentage Percentage
Labor category of men of women
Agriculture 9.9 2.1
Building trades 11.9 0.1
Craft manufacturing/shops 42.7 29.9
Domestic service 3.5 58.9
Factory manufacturing 8.9 1.1
Public service/professions 9.4 5.8
Transportation 7.6 1.6
Other 6.1 0.4
Number in labor force 11,225 5,129
Percentage of labor force 68.6 31.4
Source: Louise A. Tilly and Joan W. Scott, Women, Work, and Family
© 1987. Reprinted by permission of Taylor & Francis, Inc./Routledge, Inc.
(New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 1978), p. 86.TABLE 22.5The Labor Force in York, England, 1851