This visual archive documents three centuries of childhood exploitation through six carefully selected images that expose the rhetoric behind each era's abuse. Romantic-era engravings of "happy" chimney sweeps, Victorian factory commission illustrations reducing children to statistics, and WWI recruitment posters transforming boys into knights—each image reveals how visual culture reinforced literary justifications for destroying childhood while maintaining society's moral pretensions.

Images in this Exhibit

“The Chimney Sweeper” Original Illustration by William Blake

This is the original illustrated print copy of Blake's "The Chimney Sweeper". Notice the bright colors used in contrast of the pieces dark undertones. The bottom showing children at play in a field rather than working as chimney sweepers like described in the poem. Why do  you think Blake did this?

Photo: “William Blake | Songs of Innocence: The Chimney Sweeper.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/347918. Accessed 10 Dec. 2025.

Agnes Gardner King – Illustration for Wordsworth’s We are Seven

This is the cover of an illustrated copy of Wordsworth’s “We are Seven”. These copies were illustrated by Agnes Gardner King who also went on to illustrate other works of Wordsworth’s.

“Agnes Gardner King.” Agnes Gardner King, 2020, agnesgardnerking.wordpress.com/. Accessed 10 Dec. 2025.

Memorial to Huskar Pit Disaster

The Huskar Pit Disaster Monument. This contains the names and ages of every child who tragically passed in the disaster alongside their graves.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Memorial_to_Huskar_Pit_Disaster.jpg

The Condition and Treatment of the Children employed in the Mines and Colliers

The Condition and Treatment of the Children employed in the Mines and Colliers of the United Kingdom from the British Library Archive. This 1842 report on UK mines revealed horrific conditions for child laborers: they were tiny, overworked from age 4-5 in darkness, wet, and cold, performing dangerous tasks like opening air doors or hauling coal on all fours, leading to severe injuries (fractures, spinal damage) and chronic illnesses (respiratory issues from coal dust), with abuse from older workers and poor education; this prompted the 1842 Mines Act, banning females and boys…

Soldiers at Battle of the Somme in Trenches

Men of the Border Regiment are pictured resting, some in 'funk holes', in a front line trench at Thiepval Wood during the Battle of the Somme in August 1916. The British and French did make some progress during August 1916, so much so that the German General Erich von Falkenhayn was forced to resign after he failed to capture Verdun.

Summers, Chris. “French Fields Show Signs of Battle Which Claimed 300,000 Lives.” Daily Mail UK, 26 May 2016,…

Wreaths of Memorial Poppies

For Armistice Day (Remembrance Day), the red poppy symbolizes the blood shed by soldiers and the resilience of life, originating from the poem "In Flanders Fields," which noted their growth on WWI battlefields, becoming a powerful emblem of remembrance for fallen military personnel and a fundraising token for veterans.

"In Flanders Fields": Canadian Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae wrote this poem in 1915, describing poppies growing vibrantly amidst the graves of fallen soldiers in the devastated fields of Belgium and France, linking the flower to death and remembrance.…

Exhibit Tags
British Literature
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Public - accessible to all site users
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MSSU ENG272 - Fall 2025