Exhibits of Curators

            The analysis process is an important part of curating because it helps the curator fully understand the topic of child labor and the sources that are used. It guides curators into what the viewers should get out of the exhibit. In order for viewers to understand the topic, the curator must be an expert in the topic, by analyzing each source used in the exhibit. This exhibit displays how child labor was popular during the Industrial Revolution. The picture of the young boys working a machine in the top left corner explains that even though these children were young and small, they were forced to operate dangerous machines. This picture was created in 1909,which was at the end of the Industrial revolution. Below that picture shows the dangerous working conditions of young children. It was made in 1854,during the Industrial Revolution. The picture underneath that states the fact that children were risking their lives to have a job during this time. They did intense work in risky mines.This source came from an English Factory Act hearing in 1819, which is the time that this child labor problem was present. The article in the middle at the bottom explains that delicate girls had to work in unfair conditions. It was written in 1794, which is when women were forced to make textiles on handlooms at home. This was written before the spinning jenny was invented. The chart in the middle at the top shows how the greatest percent of cotton factory workers in 1818-1819 was under the age of ten. At the same time, the number of people this age had the lowest percent. This source was written in Manchester in 1818, the time and place that this child labor was occurring. The article in the bottom right corner tells about the use of child labor decreasing in 1833. This act helps the problem, but does not completely end it. This article is the only positive source in the exhibit, so the background of it is brighter than all of the other sources. It was written in 1833, when the Factory Act was created. The title of the exhibit tells the viewer that this exhibit is about how the Industrial Revolution relied on child labor. Children were the main workers at this time and without them, all of the products would not have been manufactured. It grabs the viewer's attention by saying, "An Era Built on the Backs of Children," instead of plainly saying, "Child Labor in the Industrial Revolution." I hope the visitors will understand that during the Industrial Revolution, people were not only worked extremely hard under poor conditions with little pay, but that these workers were as young as under ten years old. The Industrial Revolution created fantastic products and ideas, however that is not worth the suffering of these children.
            While visiting the "Cotton and Slave Boom in the Industrial Revolution" exhibit, I learned that while the number of cotton textile mills were increasing, so were the number of slaves. A graph displayed that in 1834, there were twenty-two cotton mills and 2,300,000 slaves. After only twenty-four years, there were fifty-two textile mills and 3,953,696 slaves in a United States region. By visiting "Before and After the Industrial Revolution's Textile Industry" I now understand that before the spinning jenny was invented in the 1800s, women and girls had to spend time manufacturing textiles in there homes on handlooms. The spinning wheel made the work easier and faster, however the factories that these machines were in forced families to overwork with little pay. The "Transporting the Industrial Revolution" exhibit taught me that the steamship helped transport merchandise across canals when the amount of goods being made increased. The picture in the bottom left corner was in the exhibit and helped me understand how the steam engine operates. From visiting the "Industrial Revolution Brings Poverty and Pollution" exhibit, I have interpreted that people were in poverty when their living expenses increased, but their wages did not. The living conditions were crowded, polluted, and filthy. In this exhibit, it stuck out to me that a wealthy Scottish doctor and scholar claimed that the working-class had satisfying living conditions, while a French political thinker and historian stated that these conditions were horrifying.