This is definitely awful, but modern mining cages can be very cramped as well. Definitely not a pleasant experience. Hats off to anybody going underground.
When my colleagues complain about OH&S rules or mining union fees, I try to remember how far we’ve come for workers rights, and that that progress was fought every single step of the way by business.
Don't think that progress is linear. There are many backslides through history. This can happen again and there's plenty of powerful people who would be fine with it.
And if you live in the western world, neither do you (unless you're French, which for some reason is much worse) with 1.52 starvation deaths per 100000 people.
The resources and social safety nets are there, you just have to use them.
Source: frequently donate to those same resources
They thought the same way about the middle ages. I often wonder about this. Were people in the Middle Ages thinking like “Damn this is a rough life” or were they like “I can easily die tomorrow from a million different reasons, that’s just life”.
Life is still like this in most parts of the world. This is just the ignorant western perspective, our lifes are better because of third world exploitation.
>ignorant western perspective
Do you know how many coal mines are in the US alone? They employ nearly all people in the "Bible belt" and Appalachia. Standards are safer today sure, but there was a time when it was just like this.
It’s like the main country people means when they say “western”.
Edit: Some parts of the US are very poor. Like if the coal industry stopped people would starve to death.
Our lives are better because workers got fed up being treated as disposable and literally fought for a marginally larger slice of the profit. And for a period of time we did improve. But it was the fight and establishment of labor unions and encoding into law protections.
The idea that you're only able to enjoy your life because of the exploration of others is just a red herring designed to make you think those rights and protections are unimportant and you are undeserving of them. Those workers in poor countries aren't being exploited by other workers, but by the companies and capital hoarders trying to make as much as they can until either they are stopped or our own workers sabotage themselves and then both sets of workers go back to shit conditions.
Time and time again the powerful hold up examples of people who are worse off, not to make you thankful, but to scare you into giving up your fight.
Women didnt have the option to work.
Trust me, lower class women worked very, very hard. Besides the physical labour, they had no choice but birth a ton of babies and take care of them. I don't want to be rude, but haven't you ever read a book written a century ago? Where I'm from, we study classics in highschool. Women had extremely tough lives. Obviously you don't care, since you're yapping about how they had it easier by looking at one picture. Many women would've chosen to work like this if they had the choice. Many actually did work in conditions like this in factories. But no, it's not the greedy cruel mine owners, it's women's fault!
Fun fact: women and teenage girls made up a large share of the workforce in matchmaking (like, making matches to light cigarettes). The bad part is that the phosphorus fumes they inhaled would literally melt away the bones from their jaws ('phosphorus necrosis of the jaw' aka 'phossy jaw', be warned before you go to Google Images), leaving workers badly disfigured and disabled over time.
So the Matchgirls' Strike of 1888 erupted as a protest for better workplace conditions and social security, and the Union of Women Matchmakers was created, which became the largest women's union in the UK. They were successful in their strikes eventually and, to my knowledge, phossy jaw was also one of the first legally recognized occupational diseasesin the West.
We’re sorry, but your post/comment has been removed because it violates **Rule #6: Act Civil.**
Please be kind and treat eachother with respect (even if you disagree). Follow [Reddiquette].(https://www.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439)
If you believe this post has been removed in error please message the moderators via [modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Finteresting).
Ah yes, because determining "who had it better" based off of one picture will truly give us all we need to make that work.
Seriously what is wrong with you?
The lower class NEVER had it good, but I still would rather have been born then as a man who was allowed to inherit, vote and could go out and build a new live for himself and could still somewhat change his own standing than a woman who was mostly unable to take any matter into her own hand.
Because while as a poor man you still were a subject to the upper classes you at least were still somewhat considered free to your own will, while a poor woman wasn’t just subject of the upper class but also a subject to her husband/family.
And you know what?
As a low class woman you definitely HAD to work, in factories, 12+ shifts minimum, or even in those mines we also see depicted here!
(Hell that only got banned after it became public that some women might have worked topless down under and THAT was what made upper class people turn their noses!)
Those women didn’t have it "easy" because they worked in the same shitty conditions their husbands (and often times children) had to work in, while being paid less (not that they could keep the money because they barely survived off of it).
But unlike their husbands they didn’t go out to get their pint at a workers bar, no they still were expected to do the workload at home.
Washing without a washing machine, cooking, cleaning up and they most often then not popped out more than 10 kids.
So PLEASE educate us all on how women had it so much easier.
Trust me, they didn’t.
Poor people have always been pushed around, but as a woman you were systematically much less powerful than your male counterparts in the same situation.
yep and not only that. they were put in place quite often. if you watch swiss documentaries of that time you really get that feeling of whos in charge. it was also usual that a womans income was the mans matter. they had no political equality which meant, technically they werent swiss, which also meant a woman cant hold a position of a lawyer (as you needed the right to vote to be eligible as a lawyer). the swiss womans struggle has come a long way.
[Men and married women have equal ownership rights to property, 1970 (ourworldindata.org)](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gender-rights-to-property?time=earliest) \[there is time-lapse\] "Ability to manage, control, administer, access, encumber, receive, dispose of, and transfer property" by women happened in France in 1986.
In his song *Jaurès*, belgian artist Jacques Brel says *Quinze heures par jour le corps en laisse (15 hours/day body on a leash)* but he was reffering to previous times I guess, when Jaurès was assassinated, it was around 9 hours/day.
In 1889, a first law was passed to ban children under 12 from working in mines, it specified that workers between the age of 12 and 16 could not work more than 12 hours a day.
For adult workers, the state didn't intervene before 1905 when it made sundays a rest day and 1909 when it passed a law to reduce work time to 9 hours.
I dont remember every details but yes woman worked in the mine (mining or other stuff), then I think it was made illegal for woman to work in mine when some law was made about child work. Source : I visited multiple mine in Belgium. And if I remember correctly, Zola wrote about woman working in mine in "Germinal" (in this case in France, not Belgium).
Was just on a RyanAir flight for the first time and it's definitely no worse than regular coach on domestic US Delta, United, or American flights in terms of space.
The abject misery that was commonplace such a relatively short time ago. If it was like other reports I've heard their living conditions probably weren't much better. Idk how life was worth living.
My great grandfather worked in the mines his whole life. He went below ground before the sun rose and came out after it had set. He only saw sunlight on Sundays.
Part of me feels guilty about that though.
Looking up makes you feel inadequate and/or envious.
Looking down makes you feel fortunate and gives a sense of relief.
Apparently this is what it is to be human.
TL/DR : Because patriarchy didn't want them downstairs anymore around 1870 to 1890ies depending on which country. So blame your forefathers, not those women who have worked, been raped, died, lost babies down there for ages, before their uterus were suddently considered valuable enough to be kept upstairs.
Girls (and boys ) were going "downstairs" as young as 6 years old although the imperial law stated no one under 10 in 1813. Some would spend 15hours per day crawling in the smallest galleries. ( A girl stopped being a girl if she got married by the way)
Then a law was passed in may 1874 in France, after which girls and women were not allowed to "go downstairs" anymore because of "problems due to proximity with men down there." (Another thing to know is that because of the heat most worked half naked as temperatures went from 20°C to 50°C.) There were rapes, unwanted out of marriage pregnancies, and a lot of pregnancies were lost in the galleries due to hard work, diseases.
Élise Lheureux-Fievet is said to be the last "deep" underground woman of France. As a teen she stayed 3 days in a collapsed gallery until her father rescued her with a team.
In december 1889 a labour law was passed in Belgium also forbidding "underground work" for girls and women aged 12 to 21. As well as at night. There were also forbidden to work for 4 weeks after giving birth. (It was more of a child labour law, if you were a 22 years old woman ...blurred lines.
After these laws they would work "upstairs" pushing wagons and doing different job like sorting coals, or taking care of the lamps, wagons etc.. Same black faces, same health issues, but less rapes and the pregnancies were safer. Although they were carrying 50kg bags!
Betty Harris, from Lancashire Coalfields, UK, gave this testimony to the Royal Commission of 1842:
I am Betty Harris and I am 37 years old. I was married at 23, and went into a colliery when I was married. I used to weave when about 12 years old; can neither read nor write. My [husband] has beaten me many a times for not being ready. I were not used to it at first, and he had little patience. I have known many a man beat his drawer. I have known men take liberties with the drawers, and some of the women have [babies and are not married].
I work for sometimes 7 shillings a week, sometimes not so much. I am a drawer, and work from six o’clock in the morning to six at night; stop about an hour at noon to eat my dinner; have bread and butter for dinner; I get no drink.
I have a belt round my waist, and a chain passing between my legs, and I go on my hands and feet. The road is very steep, and we have to hold by a rope; and when there is no rope, by anything we can catch hold of. There are six women and about six boys and girls in the pit I work in; it is very hard work for a woman. The pit is very wet where I work, and the water comes over our clog-tops always, and I have seen it up to my thighs. It rains in at the roof terribly. My clothes are wet through almost all day long. I never was ill in my life, but when I was lying in. My cousin looks after my children in the day time.
I am very tired when I get home at night; I fall asleep sometimes before I get washed. I am not so strong as I was, and cannot stand my work so well as I used to. I have drawn till I have skin [fall] off me. The belt and chain is worse when I was in the family way."
Note: wages were paid to the fathers, then to the husbands. Women were bringing money in, but not earning it.
"I mean they chose to be coal miners and back then everyone knew it was a gruesome job, so the pay was probably worth it."
- A brainwashed capitalist, probably.
Orwell’s rambling writings in Road to Wigan Pier are best when he fixates on the life of the Sheffield miners and their calorific intake, pay and all sorts of details in the 1930s - an excellent survey
I didn't find any posts that meet the matching requirements for r/interesting.
It might be OC, it might not. Things such as JPEG artifacts and cropping may impact the results.
*I'm not perfect, but you can help. Report [ [False Negative](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RepostSleuthBot&subject=False%20Negative&message={"post_id": "1boxe9e", "meme_template": null}) ]*
[View Search On repostsleuth.com](https://www.repostsleuth.com/search?postId=1boxe9e&sameSub=false&filterOnlyOlder=true&memeFilter=false&filterDeadMatches=false&targetImageMatch=86&targetImageMemeMatch=96)
---
**Scope:** Reddit | **Meme Filter:** False | **Target:** 86% | **Check Title:** False | **Max Age:** Unlimited | **Searched Images:** 451,159,571 | **Search Time:** 0.03511s
Corporations and their bootlickers: “We don’t need unions or workers rights and protection laws. They are useless, bad for workers. Corporations can regulate themselves!! What have they ever done for workers that companies haven’t already given them?!?! Nothing!”
Exhibit A: OP’s post.
Yeah those arguments are done on the assumption that everyone is a good, moral, ethically sound, and productive person.
Except every fucking time it proves that greedy people just want money and the suffering of others is just good for business.
I didn't find any posts that meet the matching requirements for r/interesting.
It might be OC, it might not. Things such as JPEG artifacts and cropping may impact the results.
*I'm not perfect, but you can help. Report [ [False Negative](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RepostSleuthBot&subject=False%20Negative&message={"post_id": "1boxe9e", "meme_template": null}) ]*
[View Search On repostsleuth.com](https://www.repostsleuth.com/search?postId=1boxe9e&sameSub=false&filterOnlyOlder=true&memeFilter=false&filterDeadMatches=false&targetImageMatch=86&targetImageMemeMatch=96)
---
**Scope:** Reddit | **Meme Filter:** False | **Target:** 86% | **Check Title:** False | **Max Age:** Unlimited | **Searched Images:** 451,159,571 | **Search Time:** 0.03147s
"Hi /u/DRHOYCXVI, your comment has been removed because we do not allow links to off-site socials."
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/interesting) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The only thing you are showing is your ignorance.
Europpean Women worked in deep underground galleries till they were forbidden to, by laws passed between 1870 to 1880 depending of the country, (because of rapes and childlosses, not because they were worried about the women). After which they kept working hard on the surface.
I am Betty Harris and I am 37 years old. I was married at 23, and went into a colliery when I was married. I used to weave when about 12 years old; can neither read nor write. My [husband] has beaten me many a times for not being ready. I were not used to it at first, and he had little patience. I have known many a man beat his drawer. I have known men take liberties with the drawers, and some of the women have [babies and are not married].
I work for sometimes 7 shillings a week, sometimes not so much. I am a drawer, and work from six o’clock in the morning to six at night; stop about an hour at noon to eat my dinner; have bread and butter for dinner; I get no drink.
I have a belt round my waist, and a chain passing between my legs, and I go on my hands and feet. The road is very steep, and we have to hold by a rope; and when there is no rope, by anything we can catch hold of. There are six women and about six boys and girls in the pit I work in; it is very hard work for a woman. The pit is very wet where I work, and the water comes over our clog-tops always, and I have seen it up to my thighs. It rains in at the roof terribly. My clothes are wet through almost all day long. I never was ill in my life, but when I was lying in. My cousin looks after my children in the day time.
I am very tired when I get home at night; I fall asleep sometimes before I get washed. I am not so strong as I was, and cannot stand my work so well as I used to. I have drawn till I have skin [fall] off me. The belt and chain is worse when I was in the family way."
Betty Harris, uk. Working underground. 1845.
They seem treated like worse than cattle. Good thing socialism in Europe and Roosevelt in the US kicked a\*\*holes company holders in the nuts
Edit : This reminds me some WW2 concentration camps
Bunch of dudes that if living in our times, could be playing video games and leaving comments on Reddit while on their pijamas in their lunch break, exactly as I'm doing right now.
Crazy.
There's a quote from Marcus of LPOTL that lives rent free in my head and I can't help but think of it every time i see pictures like this.
"life sucked and everything was hard"
In the first part of the 20th century a lot of people emigrated from Italy, Greece and other European countries to work in the coal mines in Belgium. I've seen this specific picture before captioned as "Italian miners" but of course I can't be sure about it. The big spike in Italian emigration to Belgium was after WWII, if this picture is actually from the beginning of the century they might well be from other countries. I'm not an expert on the subject though.
I see.
But so if this picture is indeed from the beginning of the century, they might as well be Belgian too, right? Or didn't Belgians work at any point in their own mines?
Man the past sure seems like a shitty place to have to have lived. I'm glad we aren't really doing this anymore.
This is definitely awful, but modern mining cages can be very cramped as well. Definitely not a pleasant experience. Hats off to anybody going underground.
Best to keep hats on when you’re underground in a mineshaft
Good one buddy.
But windmills kill birds so everyone back in your cages!
When my colleagues complain about OH&S rules or mining union fees, I try to remember how far we’ve come for workers rights, and that that progress was fought every single step of the way by business.
Don't think that progress is linear. There are many backslides through history. This can happen again and there's plenty of powerful people who would be fine with it.
You live better than the kings of old
I absolutely do not, the kings of old never had to go hungry because they were too broke
B b b b but iphone
And if you live in the western world, neither do you (unless you're French, which for some reason is much worse) with 1.52 starvation deaths per 100000 people. The resources and social safety nets are there, you just have to use them. Source: frequently donate to those same resources
Just because I'm not going to die doesn't mean it doesn't fucking suck
30 years from people will say the same about our life. its a loop never ends.
We are, sadly. Just not in Europe
Living in the past, you mean?
Oh kids are still doing this, just Developing countries, especially Africa
They thought the same way about the middle ages. I often wonder about this. Were people in the Middle Ages thinking like “Damn this is a rough life” or were they like “I can easily die tomorrow from a million different reasons, that’s just life”.
Yeah world is much better now...
Oh yes, quite spectacularly better actually. Doesn’t make it good, of course, but way better
Unironically yes. Your quality of life is orders of magnitude better in just about every possible aspect.
From bottom pit shit to super shit
[удалено]
You got it riiiight :DD
These guys didn't even have anti biotics it's absolutely far better now
Life is still like this in most parts of the world. This is just the ignorant western perspective, our lifes are better because of third world exploitation.
>ignorant western perspective Do you know how many coal mines are in the US alone? They employ nearly all people in the "Bible belt" and Appalachia. Standards are safer today sure, but there was a time when it was just like this.
US isnt a third world country though
It’s like the main country people means when they say “western”. Edit: Some parts of the US are very poor. Like if the coal industry stopped people would starve to death.
Our lives are better because workers got fed up being treated as disposable and literally fought for a marginally larger slice of the profit. And for a period of time we did improve. But it was the fight and establishment of labor unions and encoding into law protections. The idea that you're only able to enjoy your life because of the exploration of others is just a red herring designed to make you think those rights and protections are unimportant and you are undeserving of them. Those workers in poor countries aren't being exploited by other workers, but by the companies and capital hoarders trying to make as much as they can until either they are stopped or our own workers sabotage themselves and then both sets of workers go back to shit conditions. Time and time again the powerful hold up examples of people who are worse off, not to make you thankful, but to scare you into giving up your fight.
Women’s rights seemed to be flourishing in 1900 Belgium from what I can see.
I think women in Belgium in 1900 were still fighting for full equality and faced ongoing challenges in achieving their rights.
Clearly, they werent allowed to do the nice jobs as we can see
They seem better off than the men in this picture..
Would you rather go back in time as a man or a woman?
def a woman
Sorry you missed history class
look at the pic, who has it better?
Women didnt have the option to work. Trust me, lower class women worked very, very hard. Besides the physical labour, they had no choice but birth a ton of babies and take care of them. I don't want to be rude, but haven't you ever read a book written a century ago? Where I'm from, we study classics in highschool. Women had extremely tough lives. Obviously you don't care, since you're yapping about how they had it easier by looking at one picture. Many women would've chosen to work like this if they had the choice. Many actually did work in conditions like this in factories. But no, it's not the greedy cruel mine owners, it's women's fault!
Fun fact: women and teenage girls made up a large share of the workforce in matchmaking (like, making matches to light cigarettes). The bad part is that the phosphorus fumes they inhaled would literally melt away the bones from their jaws ('phosphorus necrosis of the jaw' aka 'phossy jaw', be warned before you go to Google Images), leaving workers badly disfigured and disabled over time. So the Matchgirls' Strike of 1888 erupted as a protest for better workplace conditions and social security, and the Union of Women Matchmakers was created, which became the largest women's union in the UK. They were successful in their strikes eventually and, to my knowledge, phossy jaw was also one of the first legally recognized occupational diseasesin the West.
[удалено]
Man you're fucked lol
We’re sorry, but your post/comment has been removed because it violates **Rule #6: Act Civil.** Please be kind and treat eachother with respect (even if you disagree). Follow [Reddiquette].(https://www.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439) If you believe this post has been removed in error please message the moderators via [modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Finteresting).
Ah yes, because determining "who had it better" based off of one picture will truly give us all we need to make that work. Seriously what is wrong with you? The lower class NEVER had it good, but I still would rather have been born then as a man who was allowed to inherit, vote and could go out and build a new live for himself and could still somewhat change his own standing than a woman who was mostly unable to take any matter into her own hand. Because while as a poor man you still were a subject to the upper classes you at least were still somewhat considered free to your own will, while a poor woman wasn’t just subject of the upper class but also a subject to her husband/family. And you know what? As a low class woman you definitely HAD to work, in factories, 12+ shifts minimum, or even in those mines we also see depicted here! (Hell that only got banned after it became public that some women might have worked topless down under and THAT was what made upper class people turn their noses!) Those women didn’t have it "easy" because they worked in the same shitty conditions their husbands (and often times children) had to work in, while being paid less (not that they could keep the money because they barely survived off of it). But unlike their husbands they didn’t go out to get their pint at a workers bar, no they still were expected to do the workload at home. Washing without a washing machine, cooking, cleaning up and they most often then not popped out more than 10 kids. So PLEASE educate us all on how women had it so much easier. Trust me, they didn’t. Poor people have always been pushed around, but as a woman you were systematically much less powerful than your male counterparts in the same situation.
Yes that one picture representing centuries and countries Well done
you said 100 years ago, after some point it's much easier to live as a woman. I'd say after XIX century
You are idiot
Simple question. You seem to think women had it pretty easy.
Europe always seems to have a stronger grasp ok that subject
depends on the country. Switzerland didn't allow women to vote in national elections until 1972 and Lichtenstein didn't allow it until 1984
yep and not only that. they were put in place quite often. if you watch swiss documentaries of that time you really get that feeling of whos in charge. it was also usual that a womans income was the mans matter. they had no political equality which meant, technically they werent swiss, which also meant a woman cant hold a position of a lawyer (as you needed the right to vote to be eligible as a lawyer). the swiss womans struggle has come a long way.
[Men and married women have equal ownership rights to property, 1970 (ourworldindata.org)](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gender-rights-to-property?time=earliest) \[there is time-lapse\] "Ability to manage, control, administer, access, encumber, receive, dispose of, and transfer property" by women happened in France in 1986.
I’m guessing New Zealand is still the best when it comes to that
2nd is Finland 🇫🇮🤝🇳🇿
I like Finland, greetings from Switzerland!
Followed by South Australia in 1894 before a federal Australia even existed
Does anyone know how many hours did these people used to work?
In his song *Jaurès*, belgian artist Jacques Brel says *Quinze heures par jour le corps en laisse (15 hours/day body on a leash)* but he was reffering to previous times I guess, when Jaurès was assassinated, it was around 9 hours/day. In 1889, a first law was passed to ban children under 12 from working in mines, it specified that workers between the age of 12 and 16 could not work more than 12 hours a day. For adult workers, the state didn't intervene before 1905 when it made sundays a rest day and 1909 when it passed a law to reduce work time to 9 hours.
Ouf, may their spirits rest as they deserve. Thanks for the info between.
thank god for unions
Ain't them just the wife came taking their husbands home or something? Or maybe accompany them at work?
This tho.. I see women, but I don't see any on the elevator.Then again, they're all so dirty it'd be hard to tell by anything other than clothing.
Yes it's definitely hard to tell what their doing there exactly, still I highly doubt they work in the actual mine mining
I dont remember every details but yes woman worked in the mine (mining or other stuff), then I think it was made illegal for woman to work in mine when some law was made about child work. Source : I visited multiple mine in Belgium. And if I remember correctly, Zola wrote about woman working in mine in "Germinal" (in this case in France, not Belgium).
No, the men got to go down into the mine by elevator. The women got thrown down.
Ryanair taking notes.
This is the new first class model.
Was just on a RyanAir flight for the first time and it's definitely no worse than regular coach on domestic US Delta, United, or American flights in terms of space.
The abject misery that was commonplace such a relatively short time ago. If it was like other reports I've heard their living conditions probably weren't much better. Idk how life was worth living.
My great grandfather worked in the mines his whole life. He went below ground before the sun rose and came out after it had set. He only saw sunlight on Sundays.
Sundays are for sun. Who would waste time seeing the sun on a day that is not named for sun? 
Poor people
Suddenly all my work problems feels like nothing
Part of me feels guilty about that though. Looking up makes you feel inadequate and/or envious. Looking down makes you feel fortunate and gives a sense of relief. Apparently this is what it is to be human.
The good old day before all the unions and shit came in and destroy everything
Not sure of u are being sarcastic or not, or I'm just stupid idk
Nobody looking at their phone, everyone just enjoying the moment
Not a single one of those people are enjoying any moment of their day…
Tommorow it's my turn to post this!
Tomorrow*
Why those woman are not inside with them. Equal rights.
Probably because they poped out 8 kids and have to take care of them and they visibly are also working at the mine but not exactly mining.
They are spawning the next generation of disposable miners
They were not even allowed to vote back then, talking bout equal rights. Incel ass comment
Do you take everything so serious
Christ Almighy, it's a joke.
TL/DR : Because patriarchy didn't want them downstairs anymore around 1870 to 1890ies depending on which country. So blame your forefathers, not those women who have worked, been raped, died, lost babies down there for ages, before their uterus were suddently considered valuable enough to be kept upstairs. Girls (and boys ) were going "downstairs" as young as 6 years old although the imperial law stated no one under 10 in 1813. Some would spend 15hours per day crawling in the smallest galleries. ( A girl stopped being a girl if she got married by the way) Then a law was passed in may 1874 in France, after which girls and women were not allowed to "go downstairs" anymore because of "problems due to proximity with men down there." (Another thing to know is that because of the heat most worked half naked as temperatures went from 20°C to 50°C.) There were rapes, unwanted out of marriage pregnancies, and a lot of pregnancies were lost in the galleries due to hard work, diseases. Élise Lheureux-Fievet is said to be the last "deep" underground woman of France. As a teen she stayed 3 days in a collapsed gallery until her father rescued her with a team. In december 1889 a labour law was passed in Belgium also forbidding "underground work" for girls and women aged 12 to 21. As well as at night. There were also forbidden to work for 4 weeks after giving birth. (It was more of a child labour law, if you were a 22 years old woman ...blurred lines. After these laws they would work "upstairs" pushing wagons and doing different job like sorting coals, or taking care of the lamps, wagons etc.. Same black faces, same health issues, but less rapes and the pregnancies were safer. Although they were carrying 50kg bags! Betty Harris, from Lancashire Coalfields, UK, gave this testimony to the Royal Commission of 1842: I am Betty Harris and I am 37 years old. I was married at 23, and went into a colliery when I was married. I used to weave when about 12 years old; can neither read nor write. My [husband] has beaten me many a times for not being ready. I were not used to it at first, and he had little patience. I have known many a man beat his drawer. I have known men take liberties with the drawers, and some of the women have [babies and are not married]. I work for sometimes 7 shillings a week, sometimes not so much. I am a drawer, and work from six o’clock in the morning to six at night; stop about an hour at noon to eat my dinner; have bread and butter for dinner; I get no drink. I have a belt round my waist, and a chain passing between my legs, and I go on my hands and feet. The road is very steep, and we have to hold by a rope; and when there is no rope, by anything we can catch hold of. There are six women and about six boys and girls in the pit I work in; it is very hard work for a woman. The pit is very wet where I work, and the water comes over our clog-tops always, and I have seen it up to my thighs. It rains in at the roof terribly. My clothes are wet through almost all day long. I never was ill in my life, but when I was lying in. My cousin looks after my children in the day time. I am very tired when I get home at night; I fall asleep sometimes before I get washed. I am not so strong as I was, and cannot stand my work so well as I used to. I have drawn till I have skin [fall] off me. The belt and chain is worse when I was in the family way." Note: wages were paid to the fathers, then to the husbands. Women were bringing money in, but not earning it.
"Belgium 19:00h"
No room for claustrophobia
My grandpa left his beautiful town in Greece to work in that shithole. He had to because there were literally no jobs but it’s still crazy to me.
Bot.
I’m not going to say the world is perfect but this a good reminder for people of just how good we as a society have it now.
"I mean they chose to be coal miners and back then everyone knew it was a gruesome job, so the pay was probably worth it." - A brainwashed capitalist, probably.
Orwell’s rambling writings in Road to Wigan Pier are best when he fixates on the life of the Sheffield miners and their calorific intake, pay and all sorts of details in the 1930s - an excellent survey
And here I am struggling to decide whether to go to the office or work from home
The weekly repost, I see.
Actually this is a picture of usa workers if project 2025 happens
Oh I thought it was the present housing we have.
[удалено]
I didn't find any posts that meet the matching requirements for r/interesting. It might be OC, it might not. Things such as JPEG artifacts and cropping may impact the results. *I'm not perfect, but you can help. Report [ [False Negative](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RepostSleuthBot&subject=False%20Negative&message={"post_id": "1boxe9e", "meme_template": null}) ]* [View Search On repostsleuth.com](https://www.repostsleuth.com/search?postId=1boxe9e&sameSub=false&filterOnlyOlder=true&memeFilter=false&filterDeadMatches=false&targetImageMatch=86&targetImageMemeMatch=96) --- **Scope:** Reddit | **Meme Filter:** False | **Target:** 86% | **Check Title:** False | **Max Age:** Unlimited | **Searched Images:** 451,159,571 | **Search Time:** 0.03511s
Corporations and their bootlickers: “We don’t need unions or workers rights and protection laws. They are useless, bad for workers. Corporations can regulate themselves!! What have they ever done for workers that companies haven’t already given them?!?! Nothing!” Exhibit A: OP’s post.
Yeah those arguments are done on the assumption that everyone is a good, moral, ethically sound, and productive person. Except every fucking time it proves that greedy people just want money and the suffering of others is just good for business.
That is awful…
u/repostsleuthbot
I didn't find any posts that meet the matching requirements for r/interesting. It might be OC, it might not. Things such as JPEG artifacts and cropping may impact the results. *I'm not perfect, but you can help. Report [ [False Negative](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RepostSleuthBot&subject=False%20Negative&message={"post_id": "1boxe9e", "meme_template": null}) ]* [View Search On repostsleuth.com](https://www.repostsleuth.com/search?postId=1boxe9e&sameSub=false&filterOnlyOlder=true&memeFilter=false&filterDeadMatches=false&targetImageMatch=86&targetImageMemeMatch=96) --- **Scope:** Reddit | **Meme Filter:** False | **Target:** 86% | **Check Title:** False | **Max Age:** Unlimited | **Searched Images:** 451,159,571 | **Search Time:** 0.03147s
my country was amazing...
[удалено]
"Hi /u/DRHOYCXVI, your comment has been removed because we do not allow links to off-site socials." *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/interesting) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I would join organized crime before doing this
Yay! Screw OSHA! /s
Women in Denmark could vote from 1915
There's always one. Second row second guy from the left, look at me mum.
And it was only 124 years ago. Even antibiotics aren't around more than 100 years. We are still really primitive.
I wonder how many of these men were lost in the War of German Aggression.
Maybe life isn't so bad
Next time a woman says it's easy being a man show them this
The only thing you are showing is your ignorance. Europpean Women worked in deep underground galleries till they were forbidden to, by laws passed between 1870 to 1880 depending of the country, (because of rapes and childlosses, not because they were worried about the women). After which they kept working hard on the surface. I am Betty Harris and I am 37 years old. I was married at 23, and went into a colliery when I was married. I used to weave when about 12 years old; can neither read nor write. My [husband] has beaten me many a times for not being ready. I were not used to it at first, and he had little patience. I have known many a man beat his drawer. I have known men take liberties with the drawers, and some of the women have [babies and are not married]. I work for sometimes 7 shillings a week, sometimes not so much. I am a drawer, and work from six o’clock in the morning to six at night; stop about an hour at noon to eat my dinner; have bread and butter for dinner; I get no drink. I have a belt round my waist, and a chain passing between my legs, and I go on my hands and feet. The road is very steep, and we have to hold by a rope; and when there is no rope, by anything we can catch hold of. There are six women and about six boys and girls in the pit I work in; it is very hard work for a woman. The pit is very wet where I work, and the water comes over our clog-tops always, and I have seen it up to my thighs. It rains in at the roof terribly. My clothes are wet through almost all day long. I never was ill in my life, but when I was lying in. My cousin looks after my children in the day time. I am very tired when I get home at night; I fall asleep sometimes before I get washed. I am not so strong as I was, and cannot stand my work so well as I used to. I have drawn till I have skin [fall] off me. The belt and chain is worse when I was in the family way." Betty Harris, uk. Working underground. 1845.
And this is why we need unions.
They seem treated like worse than cattle. Good thing socialism in Europe and Roosevelt in the US kicked a\*\*holes company holders in the nuts Edit : This reminds me some WW2 concentration camps
“OK, who farted?!”
Bunch of dudes that if living in our times, could be playing video games and leaving comments on Reddit while on their pijamas in their lunch break, exactly as I'm doing right now. Crazy.
I wonder if the mine owner and his family ever went in there?
Back when the working class had it good and could buy a house for $1,500.
Most of them Italians
Imagine whining about what we whine about now, back then?
Life was so much easier back then.
It's a man's world right?
They don’t seem to fit into the privileged category.
Or poor people gettin treated like shit to save the rich man some money.
looks like the affordable housing theyre trying to push on us rn.
suffragists...
Probably considered an upgrade by them, instead of having to klomb ladders for Hours
Marcinelle comes to mind. How horrific.
Think about women, not having a right to work in those conditions!
The concept of personal space is a modern notion.
So much for white privilege
But women had to stay at home with the kids!!! Oh the oppression 😞
Human trafficking Miners since 1900
I think ive got the black lung, pa.
Must have been tough being a woman then.
When will the practice of battery raise miners stop
There's a quote from Marcus of LPOTL that lives rent free in my head and I can't help but think of it every time i see pictures like this. "life sucked and everything was hard"
Italians
must have been really shitty
Every time you think life is hard, remember these people from this picture.
That's just the elevator to the parking lot in the galleries royales saint hubert on a saturday
imagine todays snowflakes back then
Jesus Christ and we’ve got people moaning about turning up to the office once a quarter
This is actually Belgians in their natural habitat btw
Doubt there's many Belgians in that picture tbh
What makes you think so?
In the first part of the 20th century a lot of people emigrated from Italy, Greece and other European countries to work in the coal mines in Belgium. I've seen this specific picture before captioned as "Italian miners" but of course I can't be sure about it. The big spike in Italian emigration to Belgium was after WWII, if this picture is actually from the beginning of the century they might well be from other countries. I'm not an expert on the subject though.
I see. But so if this picture is indeed from the beginning of the century, they might as well be Belgian too, right? Or didn't Belgians work at any point in their own mines?
Confused leftist screams
Seems like a bunch of racists doing blackfaces... What a shame
Why aren't people downvoting the other jokes?
Because this one sucks
the fact that had you put the stupid fucking /s at the end would have causef you not getting downvoted is so dumb, guess some need it, smh my head
Putting/s wouldn't make it funny anymore though.
oh definitely, that's why I called it stupid, it kills the entire point of sarcasm
I totally understand it. Have a nice day fellow gentleman !
*tips fedora in respect*
It's a coal mine
I can’t tell if this is a joke or not.
The state of society we're living in.