[cigattIcTot]

I'm pretty sure almost everyone's lives improved in the 19th century when compared to the 18th century. You're telling me that trains, steamships, and all manner of advances did not improve the lives of the common person? Try again.

In the United States, the labor restrictions you're talking about didn't start to happen until the 1910s or so. I think you would have to be an idiot to make the case that a person in 1905 lived a harsher life than a person in 1805.