14 Sample History Essay Outline

Topic: Canada’s importation of British pauper children as workers from 1830 to 1940.

Introduction

• Introduce the topic: Between the 1830s and the 1940s, Canada imported more than 100,000 poor British children as indentured apprentices.
• Importance of topic: Many Canadians are descended from these young children, but this episode in history has not yet received significant scholarly attention.
• Thesis issues: What motivated Britain to export and Canada to import more than 100,000 young pauper children as indentured labourers? What caused the practice to end.

Main body of essay

Include the main sections or secondary topics, all of which support the main thesis. Each section may include several paragraphs, but include only one main idea in each paragraph. Ensure that there are links and transitions between ideas and paragraphs.

(i) Britain’s attempts to deal with the ‘problem’ of pauper children:

• charitable efforts to deal with the poor and the growth of philanthropic movements
• assisted emigration of the poor, including children

(ii) Canada’s need for cheap labour:

• population gaps and labour shortages
• child apprenticeship programmes and advocacy for the importation of child labourers
• changes to Canadian immigration policy

(iii) Changing public perceptions of immigrants generally and of pauper children in particular:

• public and media support for imported child labourers
• public and media criticism of poor immigrants

Conclusion

Summary of the paper and of the main arguments: Between the 1830s and 1940s, Canada imported more than 100,000 children through the juvenile immigration movement as apprenticed or indentured workers. The children were valued more for their labour than for their existence as children. The work that philanthropic organisations and individuals did, removing British children and sending them to Canada for their own good, was and remains controversial.