This is an excerpt from an 1833 British report about child labor. Cooped up in a heated atmosphere, debarred the necessary exercise, remaining in one position for a series of hours, one set or system of muscles alone called into activity, it cannot be wondered at – that its effects are injurious to the physical growth of a child. . . . the spinal column bends beneath the weight of the head, bulges out laterally, or is dragged forward by the weight of the parts composing the chest . . . and the whole body loses height, in consequence of this general yielding and bending of its parts.

—The Manufacturing Population of England,

P. Gaskell,

1833