While the Industrial Revolution brought many new and amazing technologies to the world, it also brought some pretty bad things, like child labor. Child labor was widespread and popular because children were great at working in factories. Kids could be paid a laughably small amount of money and do nothing about it. Many kids were sent to factories to work by their own families so they could afford basic necessities like food. While child labor started around the same time the industrial revolution did, it continued on for quite a while after.

The photograph above depicts breaker boys working in a coal mine. Their job was to break larger chunks of coal down into more manageable and valuable pieces. They also sorted out any impurities. This job was extremely detrimental to a child's health. Kids working as breaker boys often suffered from asthma and black lung disease because of all the coal floating around in the air. The mines themselves were also dangerous. Kids would have to climb through the machinery to fix it often leading to their death. 

In 1832 the British government questioned adults who had worked in factories as kids. The workers were around the age of ten when they worked in the factories. One kid had to work from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. and only a 40 minute break for dinner. The kids were also often beat if they didn't work fast enough, and on top of all that only got paid around 20 pence a week.