Child Labour vs. Female Labour

In my first Ngram I decided to compare child labour and female labour during the Industrial Revolution. Since factories and farms were major parts of the 18th and 19th century, I wanted to take a look at the statistics of the people working within these businesses. Therefore, I chose children and women because they were the ones most likely chosen to work in such harsh conditions. When I first created this Ngram I actually wrote labor instead of labour, not realizing that the proper way of spelling labor in England is labour. Therefore, the first time I created this Ngram, there were barely any female laborers. However, after I changed the spelling of the word, there was more data to compare. I noticed that there was a decrease in female labour and an increase in child labour, so I decided to take a look at why this was. I later found in my research that many children were sent to work in factories and on farms instead of getting an education, because bringing home money was more important than schooling. Although there was an increase in laborers for both children and females, there was more so an increase in children laborers because at the time children were cheaper employment and much easier to control, rather than adults. Toward the late 19th century the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was created and changed the way children lived. Now, children were gradually going back to school and getting an education, rather than being treated as hard working adults at such young ages. Unfortunately, I am not sure why child laborers increased after the late 19th century (as did female laborers), but that would be something to analyze further more in the future.

Medicine vs. Surgery

In the second Ngram I created, I compared surgery and medicine. I decided to compare them because I was interested to see how important health was in the 18th and 19th century. Needless to say, it was pretty important! Both medicine and surgery increased as time went by, mainly because of technological advancements that led to health advancements. With technological advancements came better equipment to measure blood pressure; and the infamous stethoscope, to properly measure and rate respiratory systems. Soon after, surgery advancements took place when anesthetics were developed. Now doctors could perform more stabled surgeries rather than harsh amputations.