Child Labor In America

Everyone can agree life has it’s wonderful and egregious moments. Some people have a grand life with insufficient negativity. Others people have a miserable life and non imposing. In the late 1800’s and beginning to mid 1900’s, child labor caused several children to have an inimical life rather than a preeminent life. When people read what these children had gone through, they fail to remember to put themselves in the children’s situation; therefore, they don’t understand, nor cease how horrendous life was for the children. Numerous factual documents state how deplorable life was for the children during this era. Furthermore, these documents include the Union-made Cigars, Finding of the Commission, the Law of 1913, the letter from WPA Teacher Union to Governor Lehman, and lastly a telegram from Mrs. of Nassau County to Governor Lehman. Schools today teach this time period to the students and share innumerable certainties of the children’s lives. Ultimately, children in this life span had an atrocious duration.

As early as the 1830’s Child Labor in the U.S. was already starting to arise. In rural communities child labor on the farm was common, children being employed in factories or mills didn’t seem to be much of a concern to people. In 1830 laws were passed prohibiting children to be hired in an industrial or factory type setting. By 1800, some states passed a large amount of laws prohibiting child labor. Often times these laws did not apply to immigrants so they were often abused on the immigrants which lead to the immigrants living in poor places working for long hours for very little pay. Immigrant or not, child labor back in the 1800’s was a way of life.

During the late 1800’s and the early 1900’s child labor was a social issue that developed in the United States. In the early 1900’s, so many children ages 16 and under were working in American mine and factories. Our kids should not be forced to work at such an early age, they need education and a good childhood that they will always remember. Some children that are as young as 4 years old are being forced to work in crammed, dangerous factories. These factories are full of poisonous fumes and diseases that can obviously kill. Kids as young as 13 are being forced to work around 13 hours a day. Working these 13 hours is exactly what most adults are working at the time. Kids are also earning a lower wage since they are minors, employers

Child labor was very common and popular especially in the late 1800s and early the 1900s even though many people were not aware of the dangers. We can define child labor as work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and cause to their physical and mental development. Children are the base of a country but in a developing country child labor is an issue that has yet to disappear. Most of the children remain illiterate because of their poor economic condition and parents do not have enough money to spend on the education of their children, rather they send their children for work so that they could earn some money during their poor economic condition. The objective of my research paper is to raise awareness

After industrialization in America, the Progressive Era (1890 – 1920) began. Lives were changing and people wanted the rules to as well. They did this by passing reforms. Some reforms were written on the subjects of child labor, women’s rights, and monopolies and trust.

Throughout the 1700’s and the early 1800’s child labor was a major issue in American society. Children have always worked for family businesses whether it was an agricultural farming situation or working out of a family business in some type of workplace. This was usually seen in families of middle or lower class because extra help was needed to support the family. Child labor dramatically changed when America went through the Industrial Revolution. When America’s industrial revolution came into play, it opened a new world to child labor. Children were now needed to work in factories, mills, and mines. These were not ordinary jobs for young children, these jobs required much time, effort, and hard work. “American

Lewis Hine(1874-1940) was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. He studied sociology at Chicago and New York universities, becoming a teacher, then took up photography as a means of expressing his social concerns. In 1908, Hine left his teaching position for a full-time job as an investigative photographer for the National Child Labor Committee to document Child labor. Throughout America, child labor was ignored and unrecognized. Hine believed that if people could see for themselves the abuses and injustices of child labor, they would demand laws to end child labor.

When one hears the term “Child Labor”, an image of children making low quality clothing in some dingy third world sweatshop inevitably comes to mind. While this imagery is unfortunately founded in fact, the third world is not the only area complicit with this heinous practice. Truthfully, we, as a nation are also guilty of propagating this heinous practice. For over a century, this nation’s youth were subjugated to exploitation and abuse at the hands of captains of industry in the hopes of extracting every ounce of profit they could. Fortunately, sympathetic individuals recognized the children’s need for advocacy and rose to their defense in the form of organized dissent that appealed to the highest powers of this country to fight for those who could not fight for themselves. In this paper, we will look at what exactly child labor is, the circumstances that gave rise to the widespread acceptance of child labor usage, what working condition these children experienced, and how the United States eventually made its use illegal.

In the mid- 1800s , in more developed countries such as great britain and the united states , child labor was simply part of the ebb and flow of family life. whether children worked on family farms, as apprentices to artisans , or as domestic laborers in kitchens and households, their labors was considered to be a significant , and necessary , contribution to the family’s survival. By the mid-1900s , most developed countries has compulsory education laws that limited child labor (zoltan ,melanie barton). By the turn of the twenty- first century , discussions on child labor centered On these less - development regions , specifically on countries such as mexico, Guatcmala, china, and malaysia (zoltan , melanie barton). Crities of child labor

Child labor during the progressive era was a monstrosity and a plague upon the children of the industrial revolution. Whilst Mother Jones bounced from factory to factory across the United States examining children’s experiences, she never became numb to the horrors that industrialization brought upon very young children, and in some instances, even newborn babies.

During the progressive era the conditions of the factories that children worked in were extremely brutal. Children Worked in very hot factories and some were only at the age of 4 ("Child Labor" Britannica). The reason factories were hot were because there were so many children confined in the factories. This means that there were sweaty, hot children working 16 hours a day. In the book Children at work, there was a child working at a furniture factory and he had dozens of infected wood splints. This is bad because it shows how cruel people were to children during the progressive era. This affected children modern days because if child labor kept on going on children would not be able to attend as often much school as they do now.

A young boy of seven years old, whose occupation as scavenger, was to gather incessantly from the factory grounds , the debris of cotton that may limit the work. While the roaring machinery passed overhead , and when this is persis fully done, and the cranium , body, and the extremities carefully bound to the floor, the unfaltering movement, but intimidating mass, may pass over the dazed head and trembling body without come into contact with it.” To many of us this text belongs to in the past. This is true ,this was published in the 1800’s in eastern Europe, however it would come as more of a surprise that child labor is still active in our present day society . According to Krugman several thousand men, women and children reside on Smokey

“Child Labor.” Eiu.edu. Accessed December 6,2015. http://www.eiu.edu/~eiutps/ newsletter_childlabor.php.

Child labor is a cause and consequence of poverty and education and training is crucial to breaking this cycle. At the same time, interventions on education and training must be integrated with other interventions to effectively remove children from hazardous work. This includes measures which address poverty and underdevelopment, inadequate health and social policies, weak labor market institutions, inadequate legislation and an inadequate enforcement of laws.

In the United States, child labor and sweatshops are illegal, and society frowns upon any business that exploits children in the production of goods. Though most would say that they would not support a company that uses child labor to produce its goods, almost everyone has, in fact, knowingly or unknowingly, supported these businesses in one way or another. Children are involved in the production of many of the everyday goods we import from overseas, including the manufacturing of clothes, shoes, toys, and sporting equipment, the farming of cocoa, cotton, sugarcane, and bananas, and the mining of coal, diamonds, and gold (The U.S. Dept. of Labor). Often, we are blinded to this fact.