Children at work in the French countryside (1760-1830)

Résumé 0

Studies of child labor focus mainly on urban environments. The subject of child labor in rural areas, by contrast, (where 80 % of the population lived at the time) remains largely obscure though clearly children did work there. The chief forms of this labor are well established: tending livestock, and working the land in the fields. But this very consistency in labor (apparent until at least the end of the twentieth century) has scarcely favored the development of this theme as a topic of scholarly study, as it seemed to conform to the pattern of “immobile history”, a domain complicated as well by the issue of “evidence” itself. Some have wondered if children engaged in “work” at all, or if, rather, they simply afforded the help that might be expected from everyone on a farm. The author’s aim here is to renew this investigation to better understand how this work could have affected children’s lives both in terms of social relationships and in ways of experiencing the world.