Writing for Change

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Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in less than six weeks in the fall of 1843! Richard Henry Horne, a friend of Dickens's, compiled and published a report from a three-year investigation by the Children’s Employment Commission in 1843. With thousands of pages of observations and testimonies, the report drew attention to the serious problem of child labor in Great Britain. Dickens originally planned to publish an essay in response, but in need of money

for his family and hoping

to reach a wider

audience, he decided

instead on a short

story. With A Christmas

Carol, Dickens helped

people of all economic

backgrounds understand

how the Industrial

Revolution and its ties

to greed had violated

the rights of vulnerable

people.