child labour - quotes and descriptions to inspire creative writing

The brunt of the industrial revolution was born by the workers of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, though the hardships soon spread. The factories were mostly female and child workers, grinding from twelve to sixteen hours a day in factories. They were starving, sickly and died young, often horrifically. Though it is true to say the overseers were male, those who made them work and took money from their wages for trumped up faults, the men of the era faired no better than the women. The fathers too died young from overwork and starvation induced illness. The dressmakers aged fourteen to twenty could toil sixteen hours to make a single necktie. Children toiled and died in factories to make the lace the "ladies" wore for fashion. And this industrial revolution was revolting and rotten to its core, it still is if we dare to look closer.