I was a history teacher! And you are absolutely correct that of course child labor existed prior to the industrial revolution. But the industrial revolution int

I was a history teacher! And you are absolutely correct that of course child labor existed prior to the industrial revolution. But the industrial revolution introduced systematicized, institutionalized child labor and unsafe working conditions at a sense of exponential scale and density. Which is why it's illegal now, which we would all agree is a good thing, whether it happened before or not.