by William Blake The Chimney Sweeper is the title of two poems by William Blake published in Songs of Innocence in 1789 and Songs of Experience in 1794 The Chimney Sweeper Address a political issue publicized during the time he was writing ID: 238118
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Slide1
Chimney Sweeper by William Blake
The Chimney Sweeper
" is the title of two poems by William Blake, published in
Songs of Innocence
in 1789 and
Songs of Experience
in 1794Slide2
The Chimney Sweeper
Address a political issue publicized during the time he was writing.
Sweepers were viewed as subhuman by many.Slide3
Child Labor and Poor Conditions
Written to protest
the living conditions, working conditions, and the overall treatment of young chimney sweeps in the cities of England.
In
1788, there was an attempt to pass an act to improve the treatment and working conditions of these young children. This would have made many people, including Blake, aware of the lives that these chimney sweeps would live. Slide4
This…..Slide5
NOT THIS…Slide6
In England,
during the 1700′s and 1800′s
Master Sweeps would buy young children from
orphanages
and take in young homeless children from the streets and turn them into indentured servants.
Small boys between the ages of 5 and 10, although most were under the age of seven, and some were even as young as four. Slide7
Sweep the chimneys naked so their masters would not have to replace clothing that would have been ruined in the chimneys, and they were rarely bathed.
Children slept in cellars on bags of the soot that they had swept and they were poorly fed and clothed. Slide8
Ailments and death
Many killed by fires in chimneys or died early anyway of either respiratory problems or cancer.
Left children with ankles
and spines deformed and
twisted kneecaps from
climbing up chimneys
that were about nine
inches in diameter.Slide9
Weren’t done until their heads poked out of the chimney top.
Because the chimneys were
extremely narrow, many of
the children were reluctant
to wriggle into them.
It was a common
practice for the master sweep or his assistant to actually light a small fire in the fireplace or hold lighted straw under their feet or even poke and prod the children with pins to force them up to the top.
“Light a Fire Under You!”Slide10
Job Related Ailments
Twisted spines and kneecaps, deformed ankles, eye inflammations and respiratory illnesses.
Many also suffered from the first known industrial disease ‘chimney sweep’s cancer’ caused by the constant irritation of coal tar soot on the naked skin.
Climbing boys choked and suffocated to death from inhaling the chimney dust or from getting stuck in the narrow and convoluted chimney flues.
Casualties were also frequent as many boys were maimed or killed from falling or from being badly burned.Slide11
‘Weep, ‘Weep…
Often slept in cellars on bags of soot and used emptied soot bags as blankets.
Sickly, rarely bathed and begged for handouts of food and clothing from their customers as all the money they earned went to their masters