During the 1800’s children had no rights. They had to work long hours and earned very little pay. Children were getting sick, and once they missed work, they were replaced. They had to work with dangerous machines and it often led to injury. Children were mistreated and this led to the Children’s Rights Act. Mother Jones, along with many other adults helped the children earn rights.
Children had no health benefits. Once they got sick or injured, they lost their job. That meant that their family would lose money, which meant that they could not afford food or clothes. The children were often told that if they did not work and get paid, then they did not eat. This put a great amount of pressure on the children to get jobs. They worked in factories, and sold newspapers on corners. They tried every way to earn even a few cents.
There was this one time when a girl got severely hurt working in one of the factories. The machine pulled and pulled at her hair, until finally, it pulled half of the girl’s scalp off. She had to be sent to the hospital. She stayed in the hospital for a long time. She didn’t have insurance, and her parents didn’t have a lot of money, because her parents like most in those days, were depending on her for money. This happened to a lot of kids, but this was the most heard-of story.
Children looked very different in those days. The stress of working made them look older. They got wrinkles at the age of twelve and their hair started to gray as well. They looked much different and I think that the kids today are how kids should look. Young and wrinkle-free, kids shouldn’t have too much stress. They are young and should get educated first.
It wasn’t only kids that were protesting. There were many adults helping them. Two of them were Mother Jones and Jacob Rees. Mother Jones helped organize all the walks and ways of protests. She was brave and not a lot of adults realized the harm that was coming to children by them working in factories. Jacob Rees took pictures of the children.
He took pictures of them working. He took pictures of the conditions in which they worked and took pictures of them when they were ill. This made more people realize what kids were doing and how much they were getting hurt and ill. This made the children’s rights act famous in my opinion.
The children of this day and age were treated terribly and had to go through a lot to get right the right to go to school. Today kids don’t realize what they had to go through to get that for us. That’s why I chose to do children’s rights. I appreciate everything they did and I am happy to go to school everyday and that I don’t have to work until I’m older.
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