Milking and Herding

Alpine farming also helped small-scale farmers to survive. Milking was done by hand. The dairyman was assisted by a shepherd boy. High up in the mountains and after a hard day of work, these children were at the mercy of the dairyman’s whims. Dairyman and boy, 1890 - 1930, Ticino alp, photo by Rudolf Zinggeler-Danioth, Kilchberg, Swiss National Museum

Producing and Selling

Around 1900 in the Bernese Oberland, lace-making and selling went hand in hand. Girls produced their ware by the roadside in the Lauterbrunnen Valley and sold their lace in stalls directly to tourists who, in those days, still used horse-drawn carriages for travelling. Swiss National Museum

Children’s Tools

Kids and youngsters who habitually helped their parents in farming used smaller work tools fitted to their size and made specially for them, which underlines the responsibility they bore already at a young age. Back frame from Anzonico in the Leventina, 1900 – 1980, hazel wicker / spruce

© Swiss National Museum

Straw plaiting in a farmhouse living room

In rural areas such as the Freiamt, the Sense district, the Onsernone Valley, the Valais, or the Zurich Lowlands, straw plaiting emerged as an industry from the 16th century onward. Children would take on simple jobs, often all day long, even until late at night. Straw braider family in the Aargau FreiamtCa. 1840, unknown painter. Swiss National Museum

Embroidery as cottage industry

By the end of the 18th century, tens of thousands of men, women, and children worked in the textile industry – 95 per cent of them from home. Children helped parents by winding on, threading up, winding off, and cleaning silk. Besides school, they often worked up to six hours a day and until late at night. Adult at the hand embroidery machine, boy at the threading machine, around 1912, probably Appenzell. Swiss National Museum

Children in the factory

Industrialization ushered in the exploitation of children as factory workers. They were given simple jobs that were not particularly physically demanding, but occasionally dangerous and poorly paid. The Federal Factory Act was narrowly passed in 1877. A new provision prohibited children under the age of 14 from working. The normal working day was limited to eleven hours. Group photo of staff at a furniture factory in Glarus, 1903, unknown photographer. Swiss National Museum

Working Far from Home

Until 1981, local authorities removed tens of thousands of children from their families without legal proceedings. Authorities sent the children to work on farms as cheap labourers, or placed them in the care of children’s homes, closed institutions or borstals. They were often forced to perform hard labour. Sexual exploitation was common, and many of them suffer from the effects of the physical and psychological violence they experienced to this day. Fetching fresh water from a spring, 1947, Unteriberg, photo by Theo Frey, Schwyz.

© Theo Frey Archiv / Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur

Keep Fighting

After their parents divorced, Christian Tschannen (b. 1971) and his brother were hired out to a farm where they had to do physically demanding work and live in a tiny, cold room. The boys were beaten and abused. In his art, Tschannen seeks to come to terms with what he experienced. Cantonal disability insurance, Solothurn crime scene images, 2019–22, Christian Tschannen, Solothurn, acrylic marker on sticking plaster.

© Christian Tschannen

Underway on Foot

From 1801 to 1914, poverty drove boys and girls from their homes in the Grisons and eastern Switzerland to Upper Swabia every year. There the children worked for board and lodging – and a very modest wage – on farms between April and October. The boys tended cattle, while the girls helped with household chores and looked after their hosts’ young children. and go barefoot until autumn. Children’s ankle boots with hook and eye closure, 1900 – 1925, cowhide

© Swiss National Museum