The quick answer to how and when child labor came into being in America is industrialization. While the child labor problem does parallel the industrialization of America, children’s work before industrialization is examined as well. Rural households in Preindustrial America operated under the assumption that children would work. The practice of indentured servitude included children. Child labor also existed in the slave economy. When industrialization arrived, it was fueled by women and children. Widows and orphans, in particular, bore a disproportionate share of the burdens of post preindustrial and industrial life. The women and children of vagrants and deserters had no choice but to work. The impact on children of the changing social and economic relations the resulted from Industrialization is discussed.
