This study is a bold attempt to write economic history using qualitative, rather than quantitative, sources. Jane Humphries has analyzed six hundred working-class men’s autobiographies to draw conclusions about child labor, and these sources give her insights into a variety of related topics such as family structure, education, and the poor law. Her goal is to add flesh-and-blood stories to the often statistically laden accounts of child labor in the Industrial Revolution (1750–1900). By subjecting the autobiographies to rigorous analysis and comparison to other sources, Humphries largely succeeds in showing that the autobiographers were typical of their time and class in age at work, wages, and household structure. (Unsurprisingly, the one major exception to this is the educational level of autobiographers, which is higher than average.) Thus, she makes the case that autobiographies are no more a problematic source than any other and offer the advantages of firsthand narratives and rich context.
Humphries’ fresh insights about child labor in Britain justify her use of this qualitative source. Notably, she finds that married women’s wages were not high enough to balance the family’s loss of their domestic labor. Thus, working-class women stayed in the home if at all possible even at the peak of industrialization. In other words, the working poor opted for child labor over women’s work if they had a choice; this was a rational decision given women’s working limitations and low pay. All the same, the children most likely to work early were those who lived in homes that lacked a male breadwinner, either through death or desertion. Humphries discovers between a quarter and a third of children in any one cohort suffered from such losses, especially in times of war. In other words, “Historians neglect these poor and vulnerable families at their peril if they purport to understand the micro-history of child labour” (81). The most intense period of child employment was in the period between 1790 and 1840, showing a direct relationship between industrialization and child labor, particularly by “reducing age at starting work” (207). In addition, Humphries demonstrates the continuing relevance of agricultural work and apprenticeships. Indeed, well into the industrial age, parents sacrificed to get a boy the skills he needed for future employment; such arrangements were also popular with poor law authorities. Because of its strong relationship with labor, Humphries also includes schooling in her analysis; she argues that most boys got some education but not always through day or national schools. Again, the period 1790 to 1840 was the most troubled era, since those years saw the nadir of schooling, with an average of only two and a half years per boy. Interestingly, Humphries defends parents’ use of dame schools and Sunday Schools as flexible and cheap alternatives to private or even national schools. Such institutions allowed more absences and demanded less of boys who needed to help support their families.
In contrast to these insights, some of Humphries’ conclusions are less surprising. Her chapter on family and household follows the outlines of family histories from the past three decades, as when she stresses the importance of “mum” to the household and women’s abilities to stretch small wages. Her argument that poverty was the main motivation for early work will also not shock anyone. In the same way, she matches work done by historians such as Barry Reay when she reemphasizes the importance of wider kin, especially for short-term or limited help. At times, Humphries brings back older arguments of industrial history, as when she highlights the autobiographers’ descriptions of the hardships for children in school, work, and especially institutions. The autobiographies make clear that children worked at difficult jobs under demanding supervision and faced considerable abuse and/or harsh discipline; violence was a normal part of their working lives.
Childhood and Child Labour in the British Industrial Revolution has the normal stylistic strengths and weaknesses of a social science approach. Humphries includes thirty-seven helpful and beautifully produced tables and graphs, and she subjects the autobiographies to as much quantitative analysis as possible. As a result, her work has relevance for many types of history, and the extensive bibliography, which lists both published and unpublished autobiographies, will be a boon to future researchers. On the other hand, the writing is jargon-laden and full of passive voice and only perks up when the children’s voices return to the text. Unfortunately as well, the citations are in-text rather than endnotes, limiting their usefulness.
The two more substantial disadvantages to the work, though, relate to the use of autobiographies. First, Humphries opted not to use any accounts by women, and this choice limits her analysis at times. For instance, she recounts the dominance of mothers in boys’ autobiographies and sons’ deep appreciation of mothers’ sacrifices. If she had included girls’ experiences, she would have had a more nuanced view of family dynamics. Girls worked closely with their mothers and had more conflicts with them, so they were less idealistic about the mother-child bond. The author argues that occasional asides about girls’ work would have cluttered the text, but she could have used secondary literature to offer a more well-rounded account when appropriate. Second, Humphries occasionally takes autobiographers at their word too readily. Men who achieved a great deal in later life had every reason to exaggerate their poverty as youngsters; after all, the contrast made their rise more impressive. Henry Morton Stanley’s autobiography, for example, is a deeply problematic source. Most biographers have concluded that his depiction of his early life was a tissue of lies, including his description of his treatment in the workhouse. Not only did the Welsh workhouse records belie his claims, but Stanley later went back to the house and praised the education and care he received, hardly the actions of a tortured victim. Yet, Humphries repeats his stories of sadistic beatings as evidence of children’s hardships under the poor law (248, 324). Though this does not negate her overall thesis, it does leave some doubts about specific points throughout.
These difficulties, though, are hardly fatal. In general, this is a rich and rewarding text that contributes to the literature on family and economics during a crucial period in British history. Humphries adds children’s voices back into the story of labor and industrialization in a way that enriches and expands existing accounts.
