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Lorelei Ockenfels

Mr. Dowd

English 10

Jan 13, 2023

Is it harder growing up in the 1800s or the present day?

When I was a child like many others, I wanted to time travel into the past. I was drawn in

by the idea of no school and interesting people like Vikings, kings, and queens. As I’ve grown

older, I realized that growing up in the 1800s would not be as fun as I originally thought. It

would be likely that I wouldn’t make it past my 5th birthday and if I did then I might start work at

7 or 8 in factories with few safety procedures and lots of heavy machinery. Growing up in the

1800s would be harder compared to the present day because of healthcare, child labor ages, and

working conditions

Having good health in the 1800s was difficult to say the least, especially for children. In

the 1800s it was common to have outbreaks of different diseases like influenza and medicine was

not as advanced as it is today. This led to about 46% of children in the United States to die

before the age of 5 whereas today about 0.7% of children under 5 die in the United States

(O'Neill). Back then this was fairly normalized to the point where some children died and never

got a name and were instead referred to as infant or child (McCormick). Surviving as a young

child in the 1800s was not an easy task.

If a child survived to be a little older it didn’t get much better from there since the

economy was quickly growing child labor was a common issue. In the 1800s there was also the

industrial revolution. The industrial revolution was a boom of growth in technology and science
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which means new factories needed workers. In 1870 a census found that 1 in every 8 children

were employed (Department of Labor). When deciding if a child is ready for work, age was not

the biggest factor. One of the biggest factors was the size of the child. This is because a 10-year-

old who developed muscles early would be much more helpful in the factories than a 10-year-old

who would develop in a few years. So, a child could start difficult factory work at an early age.

Now we have laws to protect children so that young children are not allowed to work. They are

encouraged to do this by going to school which takes up the child’s time giving their guardians

the ability to hold a job without worrying about their child’s safety.

The work that children did in the factories was not clean and easy like what you would

usually expect a child to do today. Since these factories were new and profitable the condition of

the factory workers was not a big topic. This means that for a while the working conditions of

these factories were not the safest nor did they have good boundaries on the amount that the

workers labored. In 1900 there were 25,000 - 35,000 deaths and 1 million injuries occurred on

industrial jobs. Most of these deaths were due to bad working environments with poor

ventilation, extreme temperatures, and poor safety regulations (Alchin). This was common

enough that some children had fingers and pieces of their scalp taken off by the machinery. Over

the years it has changed a lot of systems have been put in place to protect workers like the U.S.

department of labor which set the minimum age to work in the U.S. at 14-years-old and limited

the number of hours in a week a minor can work (Non-Agricultural Jobs - 14-15). We also have

more safety procedures so instead of the 25k-35k deaths in 1900 it has gone down to around 5k

in 2021. (Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries Summary, 2021)

Some would say that growing up in the present day is harder due to mental health crisis.

This does sometimes make growing up in the present day difficult because of statistics like
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“15.08% of youth (age 12-17) report suffering from at least one major depressive episode (MDE)

in the past year.” (Mental Health America ) Due to many factors, we have been seeing a big rise

in the mental health epidemic. Although, many people forget that mental health difficulties

existed in the 1800s. Mental health was not understood as well back then, and they did not have

the same technology we do today that allows us to collect a very large amount of data in a short

amount of time. In the 1800s it would have been difficult or even impossible to collect data to

the level that we have today even if they did have the knowledge on how to look at the data.

Another stance the someone could take would be that growing up in the present day is

more difficult because 1/5 children are obese by the age of 11 (Henshaw). This is a good point

since obesity not as big of an issue in the 1800s than it is today. Obesity is a much bigger issue

today than it was in the 1800s since we do not have as much manual labor like working in sweat

shops and have fast food restaurants that design their food to be easy, simple, and calorie dense.

Being obese could make growing up difficult because of health issues, socialization issues, or

confidence issues. Nonetheless being obese today is treatable and we have good science and

knowledge on this, so we have medicine like hunger-suppressers or vitamins, and we have

medical procedures like gastric-bypass surgery or liposuction. The children in the 1800s if they

were obese or if they were underweight would not have as many options for help especially if

they were poor and their whole family had weight issues.

Some of these facts make many people at least a little uncomfortable. The idea of an 8-

year-old’s fingers being taken off by heavy machinery makes some people wonder what people

back then were thinking. When I was first learning about this, I was very confused about their

logic and was asking questions like “How could let a child have a dangerous full-time job like

that?” or “How they even had those working conditions that bad isn’t it obvious that people will
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get hurt in a place like that?” On the other hand, you have to think about it from a different angle.

In 200 years, what will the living conditions be like? We are consistently learning new things it’s

possible that we are poisoning ourselves somehow that we haven’t even thought of yet. If we are

then people in the future are going to look at what we are doing and wonder how we could ever

live like how we are. I offer that the next time you have some free time just to think; think about

how the future generations are going to look back and what they might think of our everyday

lives.
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Works Cited

Alchin, Linda. Child Labor. 1 July 2014. 11 January 2023.

Annotation: This source helped me understand child labor in the 1800s. This source

wrote about the history of child labor and what it was like for the children.

Control and Protection, Center for Disease. A Child’s Health is the Public’s Health. n.d.

Document. 11 January 2023.

Annotation: This source helped me get a grasp on the difference between a child's

immune system versus an adult's immune system. This source wrote about many different pieces

of a child's health.

Department of Labor, United States. "History of child labor in the United States—part 1: little

children working." U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2017): 1. Web Page.

Annotation: This source gave me a more in depth understanding of the history of child

labor and helped me understand the thought process of people in the 1800s when putting their

child into the work force. This source wrote about the history of child labor.

Editors, History.com. "Industrial Revolution." 14 November 2022. HISTORY. Web Page. 11

January 2023.

Annotation: This source gave me a good timeline for when the industrial revolution was

to help me understand how the industrial revolution affected children in the 1800s. This source

wrote about the industrial revolution what it was and when it was.

Floyd, Barbara. "Mental Health." 27 June 22. University of Toledo Libraries.

<https://www.utoledo.edu/library/canaday/exhibits/quackery/quack5.html>.

Annotation: This source helped me to understand how mental health help was in the

1800s and how much they were still learning. This source was about mental health in the 1800s.
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Henshaw, Pete. "The childhood challenges of the 21st century." Headteacher Update (2014).

Web page .

Annotation: This source helped me uncover the view from someone else standpoint by

showing the difficulties with childhood today. This source was about childhood challenges

today.

McCormick, Al. "The Journal of Public and Professional Sociology." May 2012. Infant Mortality

and Child-Naming: A Genealogical Exploration of . Document. 11 January 2023.

Annotation: This source helped me understand the severity and how normal it was to lose

a child in the 1800s. This source was about how often children died in the 1800s and explain

how common it was to not name your young child in the 1800s.

Mental Health America . 2022. Web page . 11 January 2023.

Annotation: This source helped me understand the mental health of a child today and

compare it to the mental health of a child in the 1800s. This source was about the mental health

of children today,

O’Malley, Andrew. "The Eighteenth-Century Child." Representing Childhood (2005): 6.

Annotation: This source helped me understand the everyday life of a child in the 1800s.

This source was about children in the 1800s and their lives.

O'Neill, Aaron. "Child mortality rate (under five years old) in the United States, from 1800 to

2020." June 2019. statista. Chart. 11 January 2023.

Annotation: This source helped me compare the drop-in infant mortality rates as we

learned more about medicine and technology. This source is a chart showing the number of

children in every 1000 that died in the years 1800-2020.

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Patterson, K D. "Pandemic and epidemic influenza, 1830-1848." 1985 . National Library of

Medicine. 11 January 2023.

Annotation: This source helped me understand the influenza situation in the 1800s. This

source was about influenza and the issues we have had with it in the past.

School of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania. "1700 - 1869." n.d. Penn Nursing Univerity of

Pennsylvania. <https://www.nursing.upenn.edu/nhhc/nursing-through-time/1700-1869/>.

—. "Late-Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth Century Pediatrics." n.d. Penn Nursing University of

Pennsylvania. <https://www.nursing.upenn.edu/nhhc/home-care/late-nineteenth-and-

early-century-pediatrics/>.

Annotation: This source helped me understand the physical health care for child in the

1800s. This source wrote about pediatrics in the 1800s.

Service, National Park. "American Economy." (2017): 1.

Annotation: This source helped me understand the overall U.S.A. economy during the

1800s. This source wrote about the American economy and its history.

"Non-Agricultural Jobs - 14-15." n.d. Wage and hour Division . Web Page. 10 January 2023.

Annotation: This source helped me understand the effort that we have put into making sure that

workers are protected. This source wrote about what age and how long that minors are allowed

to work in the U.S.

"Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries Summary, 2021." 16 December 2022. U.S. Bureau of

Labor Statistics. Web Page . 11 January 2023.

Annotation: This source helped me understand the difference in work related deaths today versus

the 1800s. This source wrote about how many people died in 2021 from work related injuries.
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