Los discursos sobre el trabajo infantil en la Barcelona del siglo XVIII: consensos y discrepancias

Although the mechanization and the new sources of energy associated with the Industrial Revolution evidenced, more than ever, the «problem» of factory child labor, there was also, in the pre-industrial Barcelona, a deep concern regarding the role of child work as the main moralizing agent of the childhood of the poor. Basically, the speeches and concerns revolved around the place, that is, where the children had to work, a fact derived from the fear that infused among the elites the image of a «wayward» childhood immersed in the social promiscuity of the new emerging industries, like the calico factories, away from the guild control. In order to carry out this study I have used a wide range of testimonies that address the problem of child labor in the Barcelona of the eighteenth-century,   from enlightened circles to the Church, through the new industrial organizations of emerging sectors and institutions of the city.