Handprints of child laborers discovered on roof tiles at Victorian era construction site

[Rusty_Blazenhoff]

Originally published at: Handprints of child laborers discovered on roof tiles at Victorian era construction site | Boing Boing

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[zoidberg]

Coming soon to a red state near you

[gracchus]

This is the sort of artifact that brings joy to the heirs of Thatcher and Reagan.

[generic_name]

“Please sir, may I have more gruel?”

[NukeML]

“Fun fact. Tiles were made by Victorian kids”

Fun facts!

[Alvin_Goodman]

Thank goodness those barbaric days are behin… ohhh…

Perspective | Child labor in America is back in a big way

[catsidhe]

@Rusty_Blazenhoff

The company shared a video of the tiles, juxtaposing an adult roofer’s hand against the impressions left on the tiles, speculating that the child workers were likely as young as seven years old.

Nah, they were probably all the way up to twelve or fourteen.

It’s just that they were so systematically malnourished that they were only as big as we’d now expect a seven year old to be.

Not joking.

[tcg550]

There Is A Castle On A Cloud | Les Misérables | Screen Bites

[zoidberg]

True. The 7-8 year olds were probably not strong enough to work 16 hour days in the tile factory so they were instead catching rats, making matches, chasing birds from fields (yes, children were employed as human scarecrows), picking pockets, and of course sweeping chimneys.

According to this site, “Children usually outgrew the job [chimney sweeping] around 9 or 10 years of age.” and “Bosses underfed children so that they would be thin enough to continue going down chimneys.”

So yeah, in some cases the malnourishment was indeed very systematic.

[chgoliz]

Having looked at the video, I would argue that it’s very likely 7- and 8-year-olds were working in the industry, of course, but those hand prints are from older workers: anything from early teens through adult females. Especially considering the malnutrition issue as mentioned above. Both size and depth (lighter-weight people can’t press as hard on wet clay) are the clues for me.