WEBVTT - Child Labor: Not Funny 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.119 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:16.439 Clark and there's Charles w Chuck Bryant and Jerry's out 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:21.440 there hovering around in the digital um weird audio ether 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:25.040 and this is stuff you should know. This is gonna 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:28.560 be a good, uplifting, fun one and bouncy light one. 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:32.199 I think so. And it's you know, hot off the 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:37.880 presses from our My daughter just wrote this episode for us. Yeah, yeah, 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:42.279 in record time too. I was impressed. He didn't pay her, 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:45.800 did you no? But it's funny. I went to look up. 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:48.199 You know, I've talked before about the end of the 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:50.000 fact that I started working when I was thirteen at 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:54.760 a barbecue restaurant and uh, minimum wage when I started 0:00:54.800 --> 0:00:57.760 working was three dollars and thirty five cents an hour. Wow, 0:00:58.120 --> 0:01:04.240 how far we've come at are they've doubled it whatever? 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:07.800 Forty years? Isn't that nuts? Dude? Yeah, and you know 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:09.600 we'll get to that. But I have a list of 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:12.639 kind of where we ended up with minimum wage along 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:16.560 the years. But yeah, JJ's barbecue three thirty five an hour, baby, 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:21.560 that's pretty great. My first um uh job was even 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:23.520 younger than that. I was like nine or ten when 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:27.199 I was a paper boy. Yeah, I mean I couldn't 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:29.240 have made more than because that was only It's not 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:32.280 like I was working every units, working weekends. I probably 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:36.039 made like less than fifty dollars a week. M hmm. 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:38.319 But I mean your third teen, where were you spending 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:40.800 on thirteen? And like a good clean Christian kid, you 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:43.760 weren't spending that on anything. Archie comic except has a 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:47.240 lot of Archie comics do, Yes, it does, although they 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:49.800 have a lot of variations, so you could easily spend 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:53.080 fifty dollars a week on Archie comics back then, though 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:55.480 those those things were cheap. I was living high on 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:59.720 the hog. But so it sounds like a man. It's 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:02.560 so our buddy Dave helped us out with this one, 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:05.360 Dave Ruse, and he makes a really good point that 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:07.600 you and I sitting around talking about you know, you 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:10.040 made fifty bucks a week. I was a paper boy. 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:13.920 Like whatever stresses and troubles that we ran into post 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:19.200 you know, seventies something, um, As far as our first 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:22.480 jobs go when we were younger, that does not qualify 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:24.919 as child labor. That's that's not really what we're talking 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:29.960 about here. Today's exactly it's called you just stop your 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:32.440 griping right now, because there are actual kids out there 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:36.080 who are like real deal child laborers who work in 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:40.760 like dangerous conditions for little to know pay, who don't 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:44.040 get to play, who may not socialize with other kids 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:46.760 their age. They may live and work in a mining 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:51.040 camp with nothing but adults and grown ups, um like 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:53.760 like the there there. They would they would kill for 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:58.080 you know, a JJ's barbecue job. Basically, yeah, And this 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:00.560 is a good time to be talking about that particular 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:05.799 because this is is the International Year for the Elimination 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:09.160 of child labor. And as you'll see throughout this episode, 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:11.600 we've made a lot of strides here in the US, 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:15.440 but like you said, it's not not that way everywhere, 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:19.200 and it should and I should say it's probably a 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:21.520 little off the mark to say that a child laborer 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:24.120 would kill for a better job. They would probably kill 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:26.320 the just not have to work at all in general, 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:28.640 and just to get get to be a kid. And 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:31.800 I think ultimately, for people who are activists against child labor, 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:35.640 that's the goal. It's not like get better, better working 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:38.640 conditions for six year olds it's to like just make 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:41.320 six year olds not have to work any longer. And 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:43.760 we'll talk about how to solve that, how that that 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:47.880 UM International Year for the Elimination of Child Labor aims 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:52.200 to do that. They have some pretty pragmatic ideas UM 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:54.960 and so hopefully they'll this this episode of a nice 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:57.960 bow on the end. But we're gonna have to slog 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:00.760 through some misery to get there, Chuck, take it a way. 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:04.800 There's no better place to slog through misery than the 0:04:04.800 --> 0:04:08.200 founding of this country, way back in the old days, 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:14.240 when the New World was new and settlers came over, 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:17.200 and they very much believed And why why did I 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:19.240 think this was ed? You said, this is Dave. Yeah, 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:22.880 I'm almost positive it was Dave. Was It reads like 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:25.000 a Dave to me. But oh man, if it's dead, 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:29.800 I'm sorry. Sorry to both. Sure, you need to get 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:32.400 those guys together one day. I think maybe we should 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:35.760 keep them far apart exactly they might they might turn 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:39.720 against us. Uh. Yeah, So they believe very much that 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:42.640 the idol's hands were the Devil's workshop, that old saying. 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:45.120 And you know, this is one of those It was 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:47.839 kind of hard for me to you know, let's let's 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:50.839 just lop off, you know, developing nations today, which is 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:54.200 clearly awful. I found myself as an adult more and 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:58.480 more with the cultural relativism, thinking like, obviously, five year 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:01.920 old shouldn't be working in factory. But when I read 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:05.920 about like twelve and thirteen year olds working hard back then, 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:09.159 I was kind of like, it's not great, but it was. 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:10.880 That's just kind of how it was at the time. 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:14.960 If you had parents that were farmers, you're not gonna, 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:18.680 you know, be just hanging out until your sweet sixteenth 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:21.640 birthday having a good time. You're gonna be working from 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:24.599 a pretty young age. And I found myself more and 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:28.039 more thinking like, you know, in certain situations, that wasn't 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:31.760 the worst thing, but then you get to the industrial revolutions, 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:33.680 and you know, that's what things really got bad. But 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:36.719 kind of early on, that's really what we were talking 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:39.960 about was a lot of kids working on the farms, 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:43.720 a lot of boys working on the farm, girls working 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:48.159 in the house alongside their sisters and mom. And you know, 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:51.040 this kind of started when they were about thirteen years old. 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:54.240 They were sort of expected to either go work and 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:56.280 get a job and work full time, or to become 0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:59.919 an apprentice and unpaid apprentice, uh to work for food 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:03.320 and board and training. And I think also in addition 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:07.760 to that Protestant work ethic of them, like in like 0:06:07.920 --> 0:06:10.800 just completely in the fabric of America that was just 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:12.920 coming out in you, it's also this idea of like 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:15.400 what else are you gonna do? It's not like you 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:18.279 consider around and play video games or watch TV or 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:23.839 do almost anything else except just play outside. Um But Chuck, 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:26.520 I went back and looked to see if it was 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:30.520 always this way, And apparently in medieval England you played 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:34.200 basically until you hit puberty, and then you started to 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:38.000 get put to work when you hit puberty at four right, 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:42.560 more like fourteen. But like there was like a childhood, 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:45.080 and it seems to have been somewhat wiped out by 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:49.160 that Protestant work ethic that the Puritans brought over um. 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:51.200 Or at the very least it was set back a 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:54.760 little more, you know, agewise, where you started working maybe 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:57.000 a little sooner than you would have had you been 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:00.760 in medieval England at the time. Right, I think, I 0:07:00.760 --> 0:07:03.960 guess I'm just trying to draw a line between life 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:08.040 in the sixteen forties and then life in nineteen thirty 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:11.440 eight when we eventually did something about it in the US. Yeah, no, totally. 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:13.600 And there is an enormous distinction between that because it 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:17.280 was it was like widespread, but it just it seemed 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:19.360 like they were mostly working with their families and it 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:21.400 was just kind of the way that things were. That 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:24.080 was how life was. But able to try and like 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:27.560 keep your family alive. It's not like you know, they were. 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:30.800 They were trying to just all survive basically, right, And 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:33.360 that's actually the reason why it's still around in other 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:36.600 parts of the world today. It's not not even necessarily 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:39.680 like a like a work ethic where children should should 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:42.240 work because idle hands are the devil's playthings, like the 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:45.840 Puritans thought. He said, it's like this is an extra 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:48.240 worker we can have go out and make money to 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:51.520 keep the rest of the family alive. We just don't 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:53.760 have a choice in not doing that. And that's that's 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:58.400 what drives it still today. Right. Uh. When the Industrial 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:03.920 Revolution came around, and we're talking about basically cotton factories 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:06.000 in a big, big way, Uh, there are a lot 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:08.680 of little kids working there, and people like George Washington 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:13.080 and Alexander Hamilton's thought that was awesome they did. And like, 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:16.360 we're going to be skewered for even suggesting that Hamilton's 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:19.760 said this, but he did. He said that women and 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:23.560 children in America would be quote rendered more useful by 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:29.080 manufacturing establishments than the otherwise would be. Um, and I 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:33.719 think what are you're saying is like, I'm not even 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:35.360 going to paraphrase what do you say? And I think 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:38.880 it's it. You can understand it on its face. Yeah, 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:41.200 he's saying, well, you know, they're not doing much use 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:43.600 for us, these kids. And he's mainly talking about kids 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:47.720 here who would other what quote, who would otherwise be idle? Uh, 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:50.520 this isn't Lynde mal Manuel Miranda saying this we all 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:52.280 love him. No, this isn't he didn't say this in 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:56.640 a charming wrap. No, this is the real Alexander Hamilton's. Uh. 0:08:56.640 --> 0:08:58.920 And again it was just a different time. Um. But 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:02.200 even way back then in the early eighteen hundreds, not 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:04.960 everyone thought this was a great thing. Uh. There was 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:13.800 a future mayor of Boston named Josiah Quincy who toured 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:16.880 a cotton factory, a cotton spinning factory, and they had 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:19.480 you know, four year old working there all the way 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:23.320 to ten, uh, maybe ten twelve hours a day for 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:27.560 anywhere from twelve to cents a day, not an hour. 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:33.000 And he said, uh, compassion calls us to pity these 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:37.040 little creatures plying in a contracted room among flyers and 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:39.600 cogs at an age when nature requires for them air 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:43.920 space and sports. There was a dull dejection and the 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:47.679 countenance of all of them. And uh, you know, we'll 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:49.280 get to some of these photos of some of these 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:52.480 kids later on. When you look at them, they look 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:58.199 like beaten down miniature adults. Yeah, they really do. They 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:01.960 look like us exact. They look ready to retire, they 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:05.640 look unhappy, they look um yeah, just beaten down. But 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:09.360 their miniature and their kids, their children. And it's really 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:12.400 upsetting to see that a photograph of that. I'm sure 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:15.680 it's even more upsetting to see it in real life. Um. 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:18.079 And that's actually how a lot of this, a lot 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:21.520 of changes came through, was just people being exposed to 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:24.920 seeing that and kind of being shocked, having their conscience shocked. 0:10:25.520 --> 0:10:29.800 But as as potentially like bad as it was for 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:34.120 the children of colonial America who were forced to work, um, 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:37.520 it got way way worse when the Second Industrial Revolution 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:40.160 kicked off. The one powered by steam and steel and 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:46.079 railroads and and unbridled capitalism. When you inject unbridled capitalism 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:50.360 into uh a um an economy that allows for child labor, 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:52.640 you can imagine that things are going to get much 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:55.240 much worse for the children before it finally gets better. 0:10:56.160 --> 0:10:59.559 That's right. And things did get worse when you're when 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:03.040 all those sudden you have a robust steel industry and 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:07.240 coal mining industry, um you have railroads that need this 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:11.120 stuff in a big, big way, and they uh, you know, 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:13.760 partially kind of ran out of workers and partially just 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:16.679 saw what was right underneath their noses, which is these 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:19.320 kids who they at this point they had long known 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:23.040 that they could work and farm and work hard. So 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:25.520 they said, you know what, a lot of these families 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:27.679 in rural America, farming dried up a bit, so they 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:30.559 moved to the city. A lot of it was immigrant labor, 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:35.080 as millions of people came into the country from Europe 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:39.920 fleeting their poverty famine stricken countries, and no matter where 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:42.480 they came from, it was all under the thumb of 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:46.000 the robber barons, which was I can't remember when we did. 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:48.040 It feels like a few two or three years ago, 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:51.040 but pretty good podcast on the Robber Barons. Yeah, and 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:55.560 we also talked about them, uh in our book keeping 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:59.559 Up with the too. But yeah, so like these the 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:04.480 robber Aaron's got rich through innovation, through consolidation, through some 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:08.160 pretty clever stuff. A lot of them invented new techniques 0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:12.199 or processes or procedures, so like they definitely were doing something. 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:15.400 They were being productive, but they also got to be 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:20.240 filthy rich off of the backs of immigrant labor, child 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:26.160 labor that they directly exploited. And um, it was basically 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:30.840 like there was just nobody looking out for anybody else 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:33.400 at this time. It was just such a period of 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:39.560 such enormous economic insurgents that there weren't there weren't anybody, 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:42.480 or there wasn't anybody who was sitting there saying like wha, everybody, 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:44.200 we need to stop and really think about this and 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:47.920 do this in a much more directed, smarter, healthier way 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:51.440 for our society. It was like it was like just go, go, 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:53.720 let's see where this takes us. And a lot of 0:12:53.720 --> 0:12:57.200 people got trampled underfoot, and that definitely included children labors 0:12:57.280 --> 0:13:01.040 or child laborers. That's right, And uh, I think that's 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:04.760 a good time for a break. Ya ya, that's two 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:10.800 yea's Anna's m So we'll be back and we'll talk 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:12.839 a little bit about what some of these jobs might 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:15.880 have been in the late nineteenth century for these kids. 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:42.920 Right after this. I wonder how many gallons of coffee 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:46.800 everyone who has listened to this this show since the 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:51.920 beginning has heard me drink. I didn't even hear you drinking. 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:54.480 Oh you didn't. When I said I had, I had 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:59.720 a mouthful of cafe. Oh interesting, I have no shirt on. Nice. 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:10.200 That's awesome, man, you just top mine. True. I think 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:12.559 you should have left it mysterious, Chuck, because there were 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:14.440 a few people out there who were about the email 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:16.440 and say I was offended that Chuck said he wasn't 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:19.400 wearing a shirt. Yeah. Now, I put it on right 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:21.800 before we recorded. I had it off. It's it's a 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:24.440 little hot. I felt like I needed to dress up. 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:27.160 But the teacher, right, I do you are you worried 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:31.240 one of those tuxedo shirt? You ever had one of those? 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:33.480 Did you ever know? I didn't know. I didn't either. 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:35.840 You didn't. You didn't wear them with your rainbow suspenders. 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:39.680 Now that's that stuff was a little too cute cee 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:44.560 even for me. Okay, what about the one that looks 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:48.280 like I would wear it? What about one that looks 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:52.000 like a like a ripped like chest and abdomen? Have 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:54.720 you warrn T shirt like that? No? Those are fun, 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:58.400 though I think for certain people they're fun. They're also 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:03.320 like really good at boost your ego. Quietly sure, there's 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:06.400 nothing like me looking in a mirror at my beer 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:11.200 belly covered in spray painted abs. It really works your brain. 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:13.640 The brain is so dumb that it falls for it 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:16.920 every time I can attest um. All right, So we 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:18.920 were gonna talk about what some of these jobs might be, 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:23.560 and it kind of really depended on where you were living. Um, 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:26.760 if you lived in the city or if you lived 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:28.880 in a company town where they have these factories, you 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:31.120 were gonna be working in factories flipped out. In the 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:33.400 rural areas, you gonna be working on farms. And most 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:36.280 most Americans still lived on farms at the time, so 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:40.320 most child labor took place on farms. But if you 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:43.840 were on that farm, you're gonna be picking cotton and tobacco. 0:15:44.200 --> 0:15:46.440 You're gonna be picking a lot of stuff and doing 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:51.040 all the sort of stuff that goes on after the picking, 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:55.000 which is semming d C. And all that stuff shucking 0:15:57.120 --> 0:15:58.600 and stuff I did. When I was a kid, we 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:01.040 had a big, big garden and my mom took us 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:05.360 to the canary. Uh and it was awful. I hated it. 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:08.360 Took you to the canary to like for a sight 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:12.640 seeing trip or for work too. Can so like there 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:15.160 was a canary that your mom went to. You guys 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:16.680 had so much stuff you had to go to a 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:20.800 second location to cannon. That was a cannary in Decab County, 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:26.560 a sort of industrial cannary for the people. And we 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:31.480 would take green beans and corn and uh, we made 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:34.160 preserves and all kinds of stuff. And they had like 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:36.800 and you know, you could can your own junk there. 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:40.040 It sounds like a lot of utopia. And yeah, and 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:43.720 we would you know, put sharpie, like beans on the 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:47.080 can on sharpie put it in the bandary. That's really 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:49.600 really interesting. I had no idea that there was a 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:53.040 canary in de Cab County. Yeah, not too far from 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:55.720 where I live now. Actually it's like fifteen minutes away. 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:58.840 Probably do you shudder every time you pass it? I 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:01.200 do a little actually, bit I don't pass it much. 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:04.280 But it's over near the dog pound where you can 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:06.280 go adopt a dog, And so I think we adopted 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:10.320 Niko there and I drove by the canary and just like, yeah, 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:13.080 it was hot. Well, you were lucky you weren't five 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:15.600 or six and left there to work all day every day, 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:18.960 aren't you. Yes, for almost no money. Yeah, pennies for 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:22.280 a bucket of whatever you shucked or shelled or did 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:26.760 whatever peeled. Um. Yeah, working at a canary would probably 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:30.280 not have been very fun. Um. They were also furnace 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:37.240 stoking jobs available, whether you wanted them or not. What else, chuck? Uh, Well, 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:40.040 kids did work in canaries. They also worked in textile mills. 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:42.119 They had bob and boys and bob and girls. This 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:43.920 one doesn't sound so bad to me, but I'm sure 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:46.920 I'm missing something that makes it atrocious. Well, I mean 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:50.119 they would climb up on the machine and remove the bobbin's, 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:52.760 the full bobbin's and replacing them with empty ones. So 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:56.159 I don't think that was like the worst job in 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:59.359 the world, But when you're doing that for ten or 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:02.240 twelve hours a day in your six it's probably a 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:04.240 bit of a buzz skill. Yeah, yeah, I have a 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:09.120 problem inherently with child labor in general. Not like having 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:11.320 a job like you or I had first they're got 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:13.280 a problem with that, but child child, any kind of 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:17.080 child labor, even if it is kind of cush comparatively. No, 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:20.280 I agree that one wasn't terrible. It may have been dangerous. 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:23.359 I don't know. There's no Yeah, there's no way it 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:26.040 wasn't dangerous. It had to have been dangerous. We're talking 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:29.040 about the nineteenth century and industry. It was dangerous in 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:34.439 some way. There was no osha no, if that was 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:38.280 if you did live in the city and did work 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:42.479 around factories, Um, you would do that. But there were 0:18:42.520 --> 0:18:45.240 also plenty of other jobs you could deliver, like the 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:48.959 essentially they call them telegraph boys, sort of delivering you know, 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:53.560 emails basically by hand to people all over town. You 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:56.120 could shine shoes, You could sell newspapers like you did. 0:18:57.480 --> 0:18:59.240 I didn't stand on a street corner. I was in 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:01.480 a newsy. We'll talk a little more about news is 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:05.200 in a second. I was a delivery boy, and not 0:19:05.040 --> 0:19:07.800 a not a really great one either. I frequently overslapped, 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:10.679 and um, it was not good at delivering papers. My 0:19:10.720 --> 0:19:12.399 mom and my oldest sister would have to do my 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:19.280 route once in a while. Yes, um, and uh. The 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:21.680 thing is is like they also make you shake down 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:24.760 the people for their delinquent subscriptions. So I was like 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:28.080 a strong arm guy too for the Toledo blade as well. 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:31.800 I want my two dollars. Basically, that's exactly right, and 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:33.840 that was right in my wheelhouse too. I was like, 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:35.480 this hits a little too close to home for me. 0:19:35.680 --> 0:19:38.440 Laugh at the kid. I know what he's going through. 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:41.200 I've had to put my foot in somebody's door before 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:44.280 to get there two dollars. I didn't ask for a time. 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:48.040 I haven't seen that in a while. That was a 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:51.840 good movie classic. Uh, if you lived in the mountains 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:55.960 of Appalachia, you might have been a breaker boy um 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:58.480 or a mule handler. And breaker boys will get I 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:00.359 guess we can go ahead and tell everyone that is 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:04.520 you would sit around and and break apart lumps of 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:09.160 coal into uniform pieces all day long and break dance 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:13.679 on your brakes. Yeah, break your boys. But that was it. 0:20:13.760 --> 0:20:15.480 And they wouldn't let you wear gloves while you were 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:17.320 a break your boy too, because they're like, no, no, 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:20.399 you can't break these things as uniformly if you wear gloves, 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:24.320 you stupid kid. So you you have to basically absorb 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:27.040 all of this coal dust into your skin, get all 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:29.880 sorts of little cuts and callouses and all that by 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:33.560 the time you're six seven eight, um, and just do this. 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:38.080 This is your life. Now, Welcome to Pennsylvania. Right. Uh. Then, 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:41.199 let's say you managed to escape all forms of formal 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:43.960 jobs your parents that they didn't make you go to 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:45.960 the factory. You did live in the city, so you 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:48.160 didn't have to work on a farm, and you might 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:52.320 think you just had it made in the shade. Not so, 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:54.399 because there was plenty of jobs that you could do 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:59.240 right there from your cretty little tenement apartment, like weaving 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:03.320 baskets or making paper flowers, or hand rolling cigars and 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:06.159 cigarettes all day long and selling them. Yeah, it was like, 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:08.199 you know, your whole family worked on a farm, or 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:10.280 if you live in a tenement, your whole family worked, 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:13.840 you know, in what are called tenement industries. So there 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:16.040 was basically not a lot of escape. I get the 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:19.480 impression that you basically had to have wealthy parents to 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:23.800 not be forced into child labor at the time. Yeah, 0:21:23.880 --> 0:21:25.840 and I might have mentioned this once before my mom 0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:29.080 did a thing for a little while where, uh, we 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:35.159 would make money doing like stuffing envelopes. Did you remember 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:38.159 that stuff? I do? And I don't remember what it 0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:41.040 was four. I guess they were for companies. Okay, I 0:21:41.080 --> 0:21:43.560 want to say Easter Seals had people do that too, 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:48.720 but I'm sure they didn't pay. So this would be 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:50.399 like a company that would have like a packet they 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:52.080 would send out to had like five things in it, 0:21:53.040 --> 0:21:55.560 and we would be responsible for getting all that stuff 0:21:55.560 --> 0:21:58.760 in huge boxes, assembling it all into the envelopes that 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:00.560 they could mail, and we would get paid as a 0:22:00.600 --> 0:22:03.920 family to do that. That's cute. That's super late seventies 0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:06.080 early eighties. Like I can see your mom talking on 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:08.639 the princess phone making all the arrangements for them to 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:11.840 ship that tour and getting the instructions, you know, and 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:14.760 then hanging up in that fifty ft long cord just 0:22:14.840 --> 0:22:18.520 kind of coils up on its own quietly on the floor. Yeah. 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:20.320 And I didn't mind that so much because I made 0:22:20.320 --> 0:22:22.080 a little money and I could That's something I could 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:26.240 do while I watched television. Yeah, totally. It's just the 0:22:26.280 --> 0:22:28.320 perfect job, as we all know. Yeah, not exactly a 0:22:28.400 --> 0:22:31.159 high pressure job. It sounds like I wouldn't even know 0:22:31.200 --> 0:22:33.639 if that qualifies as a tenement industry, to tell you 0:22:33.720 --> 0:22:37.199 the truth. No, not in the seventies. No, you had 0:22:37.240 --> 0:22:38.960 a lot of jobs. So as a kid, good for 0:22:39.040 --> 0:22:42.679 you that protests wanted my own money, Protestant work ethic 0:22:43.440 --> 0:22:47.240 shining through like a city upon a hill. Should we 0:22:47.240 --> 0:22:50.360