Children have always worked. Long before the industrial breakthrough and labour saving mechanical capital, children was an indispensable part of the production process, not at least in the household- and rural organization of work. However, with the industrial age came new possibilities for children and youth to work outside the household structure and sell their labour at markets rates. Herby, more than ever before, children hade the prospect of enring money and become a secondary breadwinner, next to the household’s primary provider of income. The research on the subject has to this point been focused conventional sources - such as government reports and factory inspections – and turned a blind eye to the main characters of the history of child labour, namely the children. Hence, the main purpose of this essay is to turn the methodological convention on its head and give attention to the household, in respect to child labour, and provide the children themselves with subjectivity and a historical voice. This will be done mainly through a micro historical study of the households social and economic prerequisites as determinants to at what age children started to work.