Children at Work: 4 Classic Books on Child Labor

Classic Exposés and Stories of Factory Toil, Urban Poverty, and Progressive Child-Welfare ReformBy Frederic Kenyon Brown, R. R. Lutz, Alphonse Daudet, John Spargo

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Children at Work gathers four classic texts that confront child labor as social fact, moral crisis, and literary subject. Moving among documentary observation, reformist argument, social analysis, and imaginative prose, the volume reveals how childhood became a contested category in the industrial age. Its selections register the factory, workshop, street, and household as sites where economic necessity collides with ideals of education, protection, and human development. The contributors bring distinct national and intellectual horizons to this inquiry. Frederic Kenyon Brown and R. R. Lutz contribute voices shaped by the emerging study of labor and social conditions; John Spargo represents the passionate tradition of Progressive-era and socialist reform; and Alphonse Daudet broadens the collection through the sensibilities of French literary realism. Together, these writers place child labor within larger debates over industrial capitalism, poverty, citizenship, legislation, and the responsibilities of modern society. This volume is especially valuable for readers of labor history, childhood studies, social reform, and nineteenth- and early twentieth-century literature. By placing advocacy beside analysis and literary representation, it invites readers to compare methods as well as conclusions. Children at Work offers an instructive, often unsettling dialogue among texts that makes the historical struggle over children's labor newly legible.

Family Political Intrigue Rebellion Identity War & Battle Journey

Audiobook details

GenrePsychology, Literary Classics

Length30 hrs 25 mins

Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices

FormateBook with Audio

Publish dateMar 4, 2025

LanguageEnglish

1Through the Mill: The Life of a Mill-boy

2Chapter I. A Mixture of Fish, Wrangles, and Beer

3Chapter II. Dripping Potatoes, Diplomatic Charity, and Christmas Carols

4Chapter III. My Schoolmates Teach me American

5Chapter IV. I pick up a handful of America, make an American cap, whip a Yankee, and march home whistling “Yankee Doodle”

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6Chapter V. I cannot become a President, but I can go to the Dumping Grounds

7Chapter VI. The Luxurious Possibilities of the Dollar-Down-Dollar-a-Week System of Housekeeping

8Chapter VII. I am given the Privilege of Choosing my own Birthday

9Chapter VIII. The Keepers of the Mill Gate, Snuff Rubbing, and the Play of a Brute

10Chapter IX. A Factory Fashion-plate, the Magic Shirt Bosom, and Wise Counsel on How to Grow Straight

11Chapter X. “Peter One-Leg-and-a-Half” and His Optimistic Whistlers

12Chapter XI. Esthetic Adventures made possible by a Fifteen-Dollar Piano

13Chapter XII. Machinery and Manhood

14Chapter XIII. How my Aunt and Uncle Entertained the Spinners

15Chapter XIV. Bad Deeds in a Union for Good Works

16Chapter XV. The College Graduate Scrubber Refreshes my Ambitions

17Chapter XVI. How the Superintendent Shut us Out from Eden

18Chapter XVII. I Founded the Priddy Historical Club

19Chapter XVIII. A Venture into Art

20Chapter XIX. A Reduction in Wages, Cart-tail Oratory, a Big Strike, and the Joys and Sufferings thereof

21Chapter XX. My Steam Cooker goes wrong. I go to Newport for Enlistment on a Training-ship

22Chapter XXI. The Ichabod of Mule-rooms, some Drastic Musing, College at my Finger-tips, the Mill People wait to let me pass, and I am Waved into the World by a Blind Woman

23Jack

24Jack

25CHAPTER I.~~VAURIGARD.

26CHAPTER III.~~MÂDOU.

27CHAPTER V.~~A DINNER WITH IDA.

28CHAPTER VIII.~~JACK’S DEPARTURE.

29CHAPTER X.~~THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF BÉLISAIRE.

30CHAPTER XIII.~~INDRET.

31CHAPTER XV.~~CHARLOTTE’S JOURNEY.

32CHAPTER XIX.~~THE CONVALESCENT.

33CHAPTER XX.~~THE WEDDING-PARTY.

34CHAPTER XXII.~~CÉCILE UNHAPPY RESOLVE.

35The Bitter Cry of the Children

36The Bitter Cry of the Children

37INTRODUCTION

38PREFACE

39LIST OF STATISTICAL TABLES AND DIAGRAMS

40I THE BLIGHTING OF THE BABIES

41II THE SCHOOL CHILD

42III THE WORKING CHILD

43IV REMEDIAL MEASURES

44V BLOSSOMS AND BABIES

45APPENDIX A HOW FOREIGN MUNICIPALITIES FEED THEIR SCHOOL CHILDREN

46APPENDIX B LETTER TO THE ROYAL ITALIAN AMBASSADOR AT WASHINGTON FROM THE CHIEF OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE MUNICIPALITY OF VERCELLI, ITALY, DESCRIBING THE SCHOOL-MEALS SYSTEM

47APPENDIX C

48Wage Earning and Education

49Wage Earning and Education

50WM. F. FELL CO. PRINTERS PHILADELPHIA