Figure 1.--The postcard here shows water carriers in a Greek colony in Cargèse, a village on western coast, 50 km from Ajaccio. The postcard is undated, but we would guess was taken about 1905. Note the long pants the boys wear. Poor working-class boys at the time were more likely to wear long pants than the more fashionable kneepants.

We do not yet have much information about French boys working. France in the 19th century had the same problems associated with child labor as oyher countries as they industrialized. These are best known in England because of Charles Dickens, but similar problems were experienced in other countries such as France. We are not familiar yet, however, with the efforts in France to regulate child labor. We believe that the problem was addresses sooner in Franced than in Britain and America, but do not yet have the historical details. The French children most likely to work in the 20th century were children in rural areas who worked on family farms. We note similar parterns with communications messenger boys as we note in most other countries. An image of a French telephone exchange that the operators were women, but there appears to be a uniformed messemger boy. Hopefully French readers will provide us some details about child labor in France.

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Created: 9:50 PM 1/28/2006
Last updated: 5:33 AM 10/6/2006