Table of Contents

Introduction: : Locating Children's Industrial Health
Child Health and the Manufacturing Environment
Child Health in the Industrial Workplace
Certifying Surgeons, Children's Ages and Physical Growth
The Ill-Treatment of Working Children
Conclusion: Relocating the Health of Industrial Children, 1780-1850
Appendix
Bibliography

Reviews

Kirby's book challenges the traditional view of industrial child labor and establishes a research agenda for the future.
*JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY*

Kirby is not an apologist for the dangers of the early industrial workplace, but he does complicate our understanding of them. By using modern studies of child-worker health in developing countries to shed light on the possible medical conditions of early 19th-century operatives, the most disturbing aspect of his research is not what it reveals about child labour 200 years ago, but about the present, when we can no longer claim the defence of ignorance.
*HISTORY TODAY*

An excellent and comprehensive study of the occupational health of child workers in the most high-profile areas of the industrial sector. It makes a significant contribution to debates on child labour, and the impact of industry on health and daily life. Kirby paints a notably more optimistic picture of the industrial workplace than we are used to. . . . The book is an excellent introduction to the topic for students and researchers alike.
*ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW*

An impressive monograph [and] a masterly survey of the field. ... Essential reading to bring up to date all who work or teach in this field.
*HISTORY*

In this meticulously researched study, Peter Kirby challenges assumptions about child workers that were commonly held by contemporaries and that have been perpetuated by historians. ... The implications of his highly readable reinterpretation ... should be given due recognition by anyone researching industrial populations.
*LOCAL POPULATION STUDIES*

This book is an important contribution to the history of child labour during industrialisation, as well as to the history of medicine and its 'professionalisation' in the nineteenth century. It provides a corrective to long-held, but ill-informed, views on child workers in northern textile mills. ... Essential reading.
*CANADIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY*

Significantly contributes to the child labor literature. ... [It] has broad appeal and should be of interest to economic historians and social historians, as well as psychologists and sociologists. It is well written and superbly documented and is accessible to students at both the undergraduate and graduate level.
*EH.NET*

An elegantly written exploration. Recommended.
*CHOICE*