Child Labor In The 1800s
Child labor is the “full-time employment of children under a minimum legal age.” Child labor is an awful act that still happens around the world. However, in the United States child labor is mostly eradicated. It did not happen overnight but in fact took many years. There were many different laws and acts and committees that were created before there was no child labor.
One of the earliest Child Labor Laws in the United States, was in Massachusetts. The act was passed in 1836 that regarded “the employment and schooling of laboring children.” The act was ratified many times until it was finally done in 1858. There were many ways to prevent underaged child labor as well as overworking children. There were age limitations, hours of a work …show more content…
day, and the act even looked out for the schooling of these children. When the act was first written it covered that those under a certain age, fifteen years old, must have schooling of a certain time, three months, as well as a penalty for companies who employed those without the required amount of schooling.
Two years later in 1838, it was put in that there would be a certificate given to children to allow them to work.
In 1842, it was added that those under the age of twelve, cannot work more than ten hours in a day. Seven years later, in 1849, the national amount of schooling was eleven weeks but was increased in 155 to eighteen weeks. While this act was a step in the right direction there was still much to be done when it came to child labor in the United States. In 1874 a new law concerning the work hours was enacted. The law was called the Ten-hour Law. It was focused on limiting the amount of time that women and those under eighteen to ten-hour work …show more content…
days. In 1904 the National Child labor Committee (NCLC) was founded. this committee was focused on making sure the children could get an education work if they pleased. One of the National Child Labor Committee’s tactics to try and persuade laws to be made is by using photographs. One of their most famous photographers was a man named Lewis Hine. One instance that is recorded in writings by Lewis Hine, is from a canning industry in Maryland. He also includes in this writing a story of a family of seven that worked for Peerless Oyster Company. The five children were one, three, six, eight and nine years of age. All Children were required to work except the one-year old, and it was cared for in the place where they worked because they could not afford to stay home and look after the young child. The other children worked daily from three-O’clock in the morning till four-O’clock in the evening. Lewis Hines reports that the mother, Mrs. Meishell, said “you can talk about the days of slavery being over, but this is worse.” Children should not have to worry about working long hours when they should be playing and going to school.
In 1911 Hine takes a picture of children and adults shucking Oysters in Dunbar Louisiana. In the photograph children are standing up to their ankles in oyster shells and precariously over a trench. The youngest one who are not old enough to help stand by their mothers. In the same location Hine photographs a four-year-old, Mary shucking oysters with a sharp knife against her body. At four-years-old she seems to have the hang of oyster shucking which is telling because it means she has most likely been doing this her entire life. By 1906 there was still no concrete legislation that protected children however the due to the Department of Agriculture there was “protection for crops and trees, for lobsters and fish.” Crops and animals and more protection then children do. In 1900 the federal government made known that there were 579,947 children ten to fourteen years of age that were unable to read or right. The fact that there were so many children who were unable to read or write when they are ten to fourteen-years-old is appalling. This points to the fact that they are working more than going to school and these children will someday be the leaders of this society but be unable to write or read in order to change or grow the nation. On April 9, 1912 The Children’s Bureau was created. It is included in the Department of Commerce and Labor. It took four years for the Children’s Bureau to finally be created after the National Child Labor Committee finally obtained enough public support to make this forward step happen. The focus of Bureau will concern themselves with “all matters pertaining to the welfare of children and child life among all classes of our people.” The Bureau hoped to keep local organizations that helped children active because they did not want people in Washington to cover all children when individual organizations would have more personal connections to these children and be better able to help them. One of the first responses the government had in the issue of child labor was the Keating-Owen Child Labor Bill that was put into law on September 1, 1916, by President Woodrow Wilson.
The Law said, “No producer, manufacturer, or dealer shall ship or deliver for shipment in interstate or foreign commerce, any article or commodity the product of any mine or quarry, situated in the United States in which within thirty days prior to the time of the removal of such product therefrom children under the age of sixteen years have been employed or permitted to work.” The law also discusses the issue of time worked by children under the ages of fourteen and sixteen-years-old. The children are unable to work over eight hours a day, six days a week. There were also time restrictions on when they could work. They were not to work from six o’clock at night to six o’clock in the morning.
In 1918 the Keating Owen act was deemed unconstitutional. The decision was made by the supreme court in the case Hammer v. Dagenhart. Dagenhart owned a textile mill with his two teenage sons and he fought saying that the law went against the tenth amendment and the fifth amendment. Due to the arguments provided by Dagenhart the court sided with him and deemed the law unconstitutional due to the fact that the government did not have the power to limit the hours worked by children, or the power to regulate the manufacturing of
goods. It took another twenty years for the government to come up with a bill that would stick. The Fair Standards Labor act addressed issues with wages, hours of work as well as child labor. The law was concerned with the issues of a safe work environment that included their health, mentally and physically. It was also concerned with their ability to gain an education. This allowed the young adults to have jobs and still go to school. It also prevented very young children from having to be in unsafe work environments as they had been in the past. Over the many years that it took to help and save children form unfair and unhealthy working conditions, it was eventually obtained. Young adults could now work and have lives outside of school and young children did not have to worry about being put to work and not get an education. While this issue is over in America, child labor still goes on around the world and should be stopped.
Bibliography for history
Primary
*Could not find Primary Source Books
Secondary
Freedman, Russell, and Lewis Wickes Hine. Kids at Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade against Child Labor. New York, NY: Clarion Books, 1994.
Ols
Journal
"Documents, Reports and Legislation." The American Economic Review 6, no. 4 (1916): 945-966.
Lathrop, Julia C. "The Children's Bureau." American Journal of Sociology 18, no. 3 (1912): 318-330.
Wald, Lillian D. "Child Labor." The American Journal of Nursing 6, no. 6 (1906): 366-369.
Whittelsey, Sarah Scovill and Arthur Twining Hadley. “Massachusetts Labor Legislation, An Historical and Critical Study.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 17 (1901): 1-157.
Websites
"Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918)." Bill of Rights Institute. Accessed March 21, 2018. https://billofrightsinstitute.org/educate/educator-resources/lessons-plans/landmark-supreme-court-cases-elessons/hammer-v-dagenhart-1918/ “National Child Labor Committee Collection- Background and Scope.” Library of Congress. Accessed March 21, 2018. http://lov.gov/pictures/colections/nclc/background.html
U. S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division. "Wage and Hour Division - Child Labor Provisions for Nonagricultural Occupations Under the Fair Labor Standards Act." U.S. Department of Labor. Accessed March 22, 2018. https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/childlabor101_text.htm
Photographs
Hine, Lewis. Oyster Shuckers at Work, Dunbar, Louisiana, 1911. 1911. In KIDS AT WORK: LEWIS HINE AND THE CRUSADE AGAINST CHILD LABOR. New York, NY: Clarion Books, 1994. 41.
Lewis Hine, Four-year-old Mary shucks two pots of oysters a day, Dunbar, Louisiana, 1911, 1911, in KIDS AT WORK: LEWIS HINE AND THE CRUSADE AGAINST CHILD LABOR (New York, NY: Clarion Books, 1994), 42.
One of the earliest Child Labor Laws in the United States, was in Massachusetts. The act was passed in 1836 that regarded “the employment and schooling of laboring children.” The act was ratified many times until it was finally done in 1858. There were many ways to prevent underaged child labor as well as overworking children. There were age limitations, hours of a work …show more content…
day, and the act even looked out for the schooling of these children. When the act was first written it covered that those under a certain age, fifteen years old, must have schooling of a certain time, three months, as well as a penalty for companies who employed those without the required amount of schooling.
Two years later in 1838, it was put in that there would be a certificate given to children to allow them to work.
In 1842, it was added that those under the age of twelve, cannot work more than ten hours in a day. Seven years later, in 1849, the national amount of schooling was eleven weeks but was increased in 155 to eighteen weeks. While this act was a step in the right direction there was still much to be done when it came to child labor in the United States. In 1874 a new law concerning the work hours was enacted. The law was called the Ten-hour Law. It was focused on limiting the amount of time that women and those under eighteen to ten-hour work …show more content…
days. In 1904 the National Child labor Committee (NCLC) was founded. this committee was focused on making sure the children could get an education work if they pleased. One of the National Child Labor Committee’s tactics to try and persuade laws to be made is by using photographs. One of their most famous photographers was a man named Lewis Hine. One instance that is recorded in writings by Lewis Hine, is from a canning industry in Maryland. He also includes in this writing a story of a family of seven that worked for Peerless Oyster Company. The five children were one, three, six, eight and nine years of age. All Children were required to work except the one-year old, and it was cared for in the place where they worked because they could not afford to stay home and look after the young child. The other children worked daily from three-O’clock in the morning till four-O’clock in the evening. Lewis Hines reports that the mother, Mrs. Meishell, said “you can talk about the days of slavery being over, but this is worse.” Children should not have to worry about working long hours when they should be playing and going to school.
In 1911 Hine takes a picture of children and adults shucking Oysters in Dunbar Louisiana. In the photograph children are standing up to their ankles in oyster shells and precariously over a trench. The youngest one who are not old enough to help stand by their mothers. In the same location Hine photographs a four-year-old, Mary shucking oysters with a sharp knife against her body. At four-years-old she seems to have the hang of oyster shucking which is telling because it means she has most likely been doing this her entire life. By 1906 there was still no concrete legislation that protected children however the due to the Department of Agriculture there was “protection for crops and trees, for lobsters and fish.” Crops and animals and more protection then children do. In 1900 the federal government made known that there were 579,947 children ten to fourteen years of age that were unable to read or right. The fact that there were so many children who were unable to read or write when they are ten to fourteen-years-old is appalling. This points to the fact that they are working more than going to school and these children will someday be the leaders of this society but be unable to write or read in order to change or grow the nation. On April 9, 1912 The Children’s Bureau was created. It is included in the Department of Commerce and Labor. It took four years for the Children’s Bureau to finally be created after the National Child Labor Committee finally obtained enough public support to make this forward step happen. The focus of Bureau will concern themselves with “all matters pertaining to the welfare of children and child life among all classes of our people.” The Bureau hoped to keep local organizations that helped children active because they did not want people in Washington to cover all children when individual organizations would have more personal connections to these children and be better able to help them. One of the first responses the government had in the issue of child labor was the Keating-Owen Child Labor Bill that was put into law on September 1, 1916, by President Woodrow Wilson.
The Law said, “No producer, manufacturer, or dealer shall ship or deliver for shipment in interstate or foreign commerce, any article or commodity the product of any mine or quarry, situated in the United States in which within thirty days prior to the time of the removal of such product therefrom children under the age of sixteen years have been employed or permitted to work.” The law also discusses the issue of time worked by children under the ages of fourteen and sixteen-years-old. The children are unable to work over eight hours a day, six days a week. There were also time restrictions on when they could work. They were not to work from six o’clock at night to six o’clock in the morning.
In 1918 the Keating Owen act was deemed unconstitutional. The decision was made by the supreme court in the case Hammer v. Dagenhart. Dagenhart owned a textile mill with his two teenage sons and he fought saying that the law went against the tenth amendment and the fifth amendment. Due to the arguments provided by Dagenhart the court sided with him and deemed the law unconstitutional due to the fact that the government did not have the power to limit the hours worked by children, or the power to regulate the manufacturing of
goods. It took another twenty years for the government to come up with a bill that would stick. The Fair Standards Labor act addressed issues with wages, hours of work as well as child labor. The law was concerned with the issues of a safe work environment that included their health, mentally and physically. It was also concerned with their ability to gain an education. This allowed the young adults to have jobs and still go to school. It also prevented very young children from having to be in unsafe work environments as they had been in the past. Over the many years that it took to help and save children form unfair and unhealthy working conditions, it was eventually obtained. Young adults could now work and have lives outside of school and young children did not have to worry about being put to work and not get an education. While this issue is over in America, child labor still goes on around the world and should be stopped.
Bibliography for history
Primary
*Could not find Primary Source Books
Secondary
Freedman, Russell, and Lewis Wickes Hine. Kids at Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade against Child Labor. New York, NY: Clarion Books, 1994.
Ols
Journal
"Documents, Reports and Legislation." The American Economic Review 6, no. 4 (1916): 945-966.
Lathrop, Julia C. "The Children's Bureau." American Journal of Sociology 18, no. 3 (1912): 318-330.
Wald, Lillian D. "Child Labor." The American Journal of Nursing 6, no. 6 (1906): 366-369.
Whittelsey, Sarah Scovill and Arthur Twining Hadley. “Massachusetts Labor Legislation, An Historical and Critical Study.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 17 (1901): 1-157.
Websites
"Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918)." Bill of Rights Institute. Accessed March 21, 2018. https://billofrightsinstitute.org/educate/educator-resources/lessons-plans/landmark-supreme-court-cases-elessons/hammer-v-dagenhart-1918/ “National Child Labor Committee Collection- Background and Scope.” Library of Congress. Accessed March 21, 2018. http://lov.gov/pictures/colections/nclc/background.html
U. S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division. "Wage and Hour Division - Child Labor Provisions for Nonagricultural Occupations Under the Fair Labor Standards Act." U.S. Department of Labor. Accessed March 22, 2018. https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/childlabor101_text.htm
Photographs
Hine, Lewis. Oyster Shuckers at Work, Dunbar, Louisiana, 1911. 1911. In KIDS AT WORK: LEWIS HINE AND THE CRUSADE AGAINST CHILD LABOR. New York, NY: Clarion Books, 1994. 41.
Lewis Hine, Four-year-old Mary shucks two pots of oysters a day, Dunbar, Louisiana, 1911, 1911, in KIDS AT WORK: LEWIS HINE AND THE CRUSADE AGAINST CHILD LABOR (New York, NY: Clarion Books, 1994), 42.