The Industrial Revolution that began in the 1700s led to cities being overcrowded in hopes of making their fortune. Families settled in towns where factories grew and expanded. To support supply chains, there was a need for a larger workforce including child workers. Child laborers began working at a very young age, in poor conditions that caused multiple injuries. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Child labor is the practice of children as young as four years old being taken from workshops and orphanages or sent to work by their parents to earn little or nothing. There was a high demand for labor and children were cheaper to pay. Child workers could operate closer to machines with smaller hands and bodies than adults. These children worked with machines, sold newspapers, cleaned chimneys and girls made matches in factories, boys worked long hours in coal mines. Young children around four years old were cleaning cramped, narrow chimneys. Their bodies were distorted to fit the chimneys, and as a result, their malleable bones developed deformities. It is better to employ children rather than adults because they are more versatile and save money. Poverty in the cities meant that the entire family had to work to support themselves. Young children began working at the age of four, five or six and above, worked long hours, the extreme being nineteen hours with an hour's break. The usual shift lasted twelve to fourteen hours with minimal breaks. The children started work at five in the morning and finished at eight in the afternoon. These were the common start and end times, although they could vary. These long hours earn them little, if any, pay. The orphans received nothing, which was justified by the fact that they received shelter, clothing and food. Other children received wages that were a fraction of what an adult received for the same work. Children who were paid received 20% of what an adult received. Life in the factories was dangerous and many children were seriously injured or killed. Children worked near dangerous, unsupervised machinery with moving parts. In some factories, children were not given a break if they ate food with little or no nutritional value and had to multitask. Children were punished for not working hard enough, for being tired, and for being late. These actions were punished by failure to respect the safety of children, verbal abuse, beatings and restraining. The weigh-in was a punishment where the child had heavy weights tied around their neck and was forced to walk the factory aisles to set an example. This form of punishment results in neck and back injuries. Children were regularly beaten with a strap. When the children were tired, the supervisor dipped their heads in a cistern filled with cold water. Sometimes cutting hair was a punishment for girls. Injuries due to unsafe working conditions were common. One hospital reported treating thousands of people each year for injuries and mutilations caused in the workplace. Some injuries were caused.