Technological Progress Freed Kids from Hard Labor
Washing machines and tractors freed America's children to receive an education.
It’s summertime and across the United States, children are away from school. The custom of long breaks in the school year dates to when most Americans worked in agriculture and often needed their children’s help on the farm. Of course, most children simply didn’t attend school, instead helping with housework and grueling farm labor year-round. In 1820, for example, primary school enrollment in the United States was just over 40 percent. That percentage rapidly shot upward in the coming decades, reaching 100 percent by 1870. But even then, many children didn’t make it past elementary school. In 1870, U.S. mean years of schooling stood at just 4.28. That number has risen steadily ever since. What changed? Technology, for one thing.
In his book Enlightenment Now, Harvard University professor Steven Pinker recounts how technology helped get boys off the farm and into the classroom. He quotes a tractor advertisement from 1921:
By investing in a Case Tractor and Ground Detour Plow and Harrow outfit now, your boy can get his schooling without interruption, and the Spring work will not suffer by his absence. Keep the boy in school—and let a Case Kerosene Tractor take his place in the field. You’ll never regret either investment.
As more farms adopted efficiency-enhancing agricultural devices like kerosene tractors, more boys attended school instead of working the fields. For girls, the huge time savings brought on by labor-saving household devices played a similar role. As running water, electricity, washing machines, and other modern conveniences spread, time spent on housework plummeted. Pinker’s book also contains a telling chart documenting the change.
Most of the work replaced by those technologies had traditionally fallen to mothers—and to their daughters. The time freed up by innovation enabled more girls to attend school.
Washing machines and tractors have accomplished more than just cleaning clothes and plowing fields. They also freed America’s children to receive an education.
Today, there are still children kept from school by household labor requirements. The burden disproportionately falls on girls. According to the United Nations, data from 42 countries show that rural girls are more likely to be out of school than rural boys. In rural Sub-Saharan Africa, the U.N. data also shows that girls often spend more time gathering wood and water than boys—time that could be spent in a classroom instead.
Fortunately, access to running water and electricity is rapidly spreading across the globe. As more households gain access to modern technologies, more children will leave behind backbreaking physical labor for school books and studying.
A version of this article was published by Human Progress on 7/2/2018.
"Washing machines and tractors freed America's children to receive an education."
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Broader Child Labour Context : IN THE CITIES : e.g. The "Climbing Boys":
[ Chimney sweeps and cleaners] Following the Great Fire of London (1666), building codes
required narrower chimneys. .......Children were used as "climbing boys" because adults
could not fit into the tight flues.
Beyond chimneys, children were also heavily exploited in textile factories, match factories,
and coal mines. Like the chimney sweep laws, early factory acts— like the Factory Act of 1833
were introduced to limit hours and enforce a basic level of schooling.
Nevertheless , it wasn't done as some sort of evil punishment of children or dastardly exploitation , their labour and 'wages' WAS a vital economic input into the family ! .......Poverty was rife !
Putting food on the table STILL IS an economic imperative ......CITY OR COUNTRY !
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Likewise IN THE COUNTRY : Children contributed financially ! Not everyone owned a farm !
In "summertime and across the United States, children are away from school. The custom of long breaks in the school year dates to when most Americans worked in agriculture and often needed their children’s help on the farm. Of course, most children simply didn’t attend school, instead helping with housework and grueling farm labour year-round."
AMAZING HOW TODAY'S INTERPRETATION OF PHYSICAL EXERTION outside of a gymnasium IS
ALWAYS politely denigrated and REGARDED AS ONEROUS AND "GRUELING" ; whereas THOSE
WHO ENGAGED IN IT DREW CONSIDERABLE PRIDE IN THEIR ABILITIES AND PROWESS !
We still see exhibitions and COMPETITIONS of AXEMANSHIP , SURF-LIFE-SAVING , MINE-RESCUE and FIREFIGHTING SKILLS etc which demonstrate PHYSICAL and ORGANISATIONAL ABILITY and "MANLINESS" , which I find admirable and enviable , while "others" seem to regard it as a "hangover from a previous and primitive past " !!!! .......Now , any DISPLAY of physical prowess is "strictly reserved for the privileged few Sportsmen and women , Athletes and Olympians " !!!
.........................SO MUCH FOR "EDUCATION" !!!
Actually , I am in favour of "a well rounded education" for the masses and "specialist education"
for the talented few and respect for everyone who strives to improve themselves !
I do NOT approve of using schools and universities as "indoctrination centres" any more than I
approve of child-exploitation [ or neglect ! ] which I see that "so many well meaning teachers
have been rail-roaded into delivering" because of our current rotten ideological curricula !
I WOULD LOVE TO GET IT BACK TO EDUCATION AGAIN !
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"For girls, the huge time savings brought on by labour-saving household devices played a similar role. As running water, electricity, washing machines, and other modern conveniences spread, time spent on housework plummeted." ..........and yet.......despite ALL these innovations which continually reduce or eliminate their physical effort .....................HOUSEWORK has become the weirdly-distorted bane of their existence..........such that marriage is now 'unthinkable' it seems !!
Imagine having to "push a few buttons" and start an electronic device to perform almost any and every domestic obligation , from cleaning , washing , cooking , etc , all in air-conditioned-comfort .....how demeaning and time wasting is that !??? It MUST interfere NO END with their iPhone use !!
Maybe I am seeing the decline of gratitude , commitment , marriages , child-births , physical appearance and signs of happiness and contentment and the rise of apathy , resentment , mental illness and weird behaviour .........and drawing the wrong conclusions about it's cause and origins ?
And of course it's all down to "a lack of affordable housing" , "intergenerational inequity" and a
massive "lack of respect" [ respect for failures and non-achievers ???? ] because it's certainly NOT DOWN to a lack of material possessions of employment opportunities....if only !!!