ABSTRACT
Until the early twentieth century the population of urban conglomerations grew only because of migration, as natural growth was checked by a high mortality rate. This suggests that, to a great extent, the urban child labour force was made up of migrant children and first-generation city children. Therefore this history of urban child labour begins with children who migrated with or without their parents, and who had to adapt at once to a new job and a new urban environment, sometimes even to a new language. Boys and girls in search of coins were a familiar sight in the streets of rapidly growing nineteenth-century cities. Like their present-day counterparts, children in the street and public places may have been truly deprived, or just ordinary working-class children who saw the street as their rightful environment for work and play. Much of urban child labour was carried out indoors, out of sight, in small workshops and in homes as putting-out, or outwork.
