Working Conditions
This filled the air in factories and made it hard to breathe.
What is dust and smoke?
This is the term for young children working unsafe jobs for little pay.
What is child labor?
Workers lived in these towns owned by factory bosses.
What are company towns?
A child worker earned about this much per day.
What is about 50 cents a day?
A group of workers who join together for better conditions is called this.
What is a union?
Workers often had to stand for this many hours per day.
What is 10–14 hours (or long hours)?
Children were hired because they had these kinds of fingers.
What are quick fingers?
These homes were described as dirty, cold, and crowded.
What are communal homes / crowded housing?
Women earned this fraction compared to men.
What is less than half?
When workers stop working to demand change, it’s called this.
What is a strike?
Children sometimes had to do this dangerous task inside machines.
What is crawl into machines to fix them?
This age is mentioned as the worker’s age in the story.
What is 10 years old?
Workers had to pay this to their boss to live there.
What is rent?
This term refers to the lowest legal pay workers can receive.
What is minimum wage?
The narrator’s brother lost these in a factory accident.
What are three fingers?
This happened to workers’ fingers from overwork.
What is bleeding?
Child labor was legal for about this long.
What is over 100 years?
Families often ate this simple meal.
What is stale bread and thin soup?
Before minimum wage laws, employers could pay this.
What is whatever they wanted?
Workers planned to do this the next day to demand better pay.
What is walk out / strike?
The overall tone of the working conditions can best be described as this.
What is grim / harsh / dangerous?
Eventually, laws made it illegal for children under this age to work.
What is 14?
The narrator shares a room with these family members.
What are mom, older brother, and younger sister?
Workers earned just enough to do this.
What is stay alive / survive?
The ending question shows workers felt this about the future.
What is uncertainty / fear / hope / not knowing what will happen?