Muckraker Research Paper

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

The younger boys who worked at the mines were called breaker boys. They didn’t work in the mine itself, but sat on benches and picked out the bits of rock from the coal. “These children worked in the picking room, a crowded, high-ceilinged vault, crisscrossed with rickety catwalks and crooked stairs, lit only by a wall of grime-choked windows” (Levine, Marvin J. "Mines, Mills, and Canneries." Children for Hire: The Perils of Child Labor in the United States. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003. 21. Print.) Within factories, small children had to work fast at the machines, being very careful unless an unfortunate body part happens to get caught in the high-powered, dangerous machinery. For several long hours in rooms without fresh air, ventilation, and sometimes, no windows, the working conditions that the children suffered through were appalling. There are children who work in hazardous industries, risking accident and injury; there are others working in conditions that take a slower but definite toll on the children’s health (Basu, Kaushik, and Pham Hoang Van. "The Economics of Child Labor" The Economics of Child Labor (1998): 412-27. Print.).

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

In 1900, children as young as nine years old were once expected to work sixteen hours a day in harsh conditions. They were useful because of their small size and the owners being able to pay low wages. Child labor laws exist because brave men, women, and children fought for these rights. The conditions of the children’s working environment caused Lewis Hine and the newsies to act upon it.

It is clear to see that in the picture of child labor, from document #10, that children were unhappy. They were also unsafe because of the harsh working conditions. These places are dangerous for adults and even more dangerous for kids. According to The Apostate, by Jack London, he started work before the age of 10. Jack said, “I started working when I was younger than him.” He was talking about his 10-year old brother. Imagine kids younger than 10 working in factories.

The bill specifically banned the sale of any products from a factory that employed children under 14, a mine that employed children under 16, and any business that kept children under 16 working at night or more than 8 hours a day. However, the Supreme Court eventually ruled that this expansion overstepped the abilities laid out by the Commerce clause by overturned it 2 years later, 247 to 251 in the Hammer v. Dagenhart case. A second attempt at regulating child labor by utilizing the government’s taxation powers was passed as part of the Revenue Act of 1919, but this too was overturned on the grounds of unconstitutional extension of government powers (this time 3 years later). Ultimately, early 1900s proponents of child labor reforms, while successful at times on state and local levels, did not accomplish the definitive federal mandate they were looking for. A permanent, federal-level child labor law would not be passed until the Roosevelt era in

With the wave of immigration occuring in the years before the Gilded Age, many factories created jobs for all these new immigrants. However, as all of these jobs were for unskilled laborers that immigrated to the U.S., they didn’t pay extremely well, and led most of these workers into poverty. Sometimes, this poverty got so bad that even children of the family between ages 10 to 15 had to begin working for their families. Several problems arise when children of too young age are forced into working, especially when there are no laws correctly restricting the amount and extent of the work minors should be allowed to do. As seen in Document 3, Jane Addams paints the picture of child labor in in Chicago in 1912, in which only one child labor law existed, which only applied to children working in mines to protect them. Although this is great initiative, it does not accomplish much in other fields of work that minors were forced to work in. Because of the lack of child labor laws in other fields, Addams specifically describes a few children injured by a machine at a factory in Chicago. She continues to portray the point that

Hundreds of thousands of children under the age of 18 are working in agriculture in the United States. According to The Daily Transcript, “Many young people ages 13 to 16 work 70 to 80 hours a week and risk pesticide poisoning, heat illness, injuries and lifelong disabilities.” With this going on, children are being exposed to harm that they may or may not even be aware of. Child labor is more common in the United States (and all over the world) than one might think. There are laws currently in place dealing with child labor, “…which prohibit 12 and 13-year-olds from working most jobs, except on farms, and also say that youths aged 14 and 15 may not work in hazardous jobs, including construction.” (The Daily Transcript). Although these laws are in place, in 2010, 467 child-labor violations were found and

With the recent explosion of social media, many rely heavily, often excessively, on the internet for their news about the world. While being bombarded with fabricated stories and corrupted facts, the public struggles to find the actual truth, creating an entirely new realm of responsibility for journalists. They are forced to delve deeper than ever before, beyond comfort, in order to superficially scratch the surface of truth. This practice of exploitation and rooted research was coined “muckraking” by Theodore Roosevelt during a speech in 1906. While this term had carried a negative connotation for decades, Jessica Mitford, the late investigative journalist, transformed that perspective and graciously accepted the title “Queen of the Muckrakers”. Mitford was correct in her prideful title, as muckrakers have fulfilled a valuable role in the creation of policy over time, as well as acting as an integral component in modern day media, full of deception and bias.

Child labor has been a big issue every since you were a little girl Aunt Bessie. There has been a lot of child casualties in the working industry, specifically i’m talking about the coal companies. Mainly, dieing not instantly, but eventually due to the coal dust

child labor laws during the Progressive Era and some that still stay today; including the first child labor law know as the Keating-Owen bill of 1916 as stated by Our Documents. “The act banned the sale of products from any factory, shop, or cannery that employed children under the age of 14, from any mine that employed children under the age of 16, and from any facility that had children under the age of 16 work at night or for more than 8 hours during the day” (Our Documents). There was also many other laws like the child labor tax law, the 1999 Child Labor Deterrence Act, the 1938 law that allows children to work in agriculture legally, the Keating-Owen Bill and in 1938 the Fair Labor Standards Act law that placed limits on many forms of child labor signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as stated by Reid Maki from Stop Child Labor. In addition, many of the legislations were unconstitutional by the supreme court, but other legislations like the Fair Labor Standards Act which regulates child labor is still in use today as stated by

During the 18 and beginning of the 19th century in certain regions of the U.S child labor made up more than 40 percent of the population (Wolensky). That’s almost half of the working population. Since the beginning of time children have always been known to help their families with domestic tasks. Most of these kids worked in factories because they were easy to control and paid less than adults. Kids earned less than half of what adults made in the work force. In these factories they usually cleaned under and inside machines while functioning because of their small size.. That’s how these kids felt as it was described in a article in our history book. They were always in danger of getting hurt or even dying, which many did. Kids as young

Before World War I, the term "muckraker" was used to refer in a general sense to a writer who investigates and publishes truthful reports to perform an auditing or watchdog function. In contemporary use, the term describes either a journalist who writes in the adversarial or alternative tradition, or a non-journalist whose purpose in publication is to advocate reform and change.[3] Investigative journalists view the muckrakers as early influences and a continuation of watchdog journalism.

“Child labor usually means work that is done by children under the age of 15 (14 in some developing countries) that restricts or damages a child's physical, emotional, social and/or spiritual growth.”1

Child labor is work for children, but also harmful to their growth physically, mentally or emotionally. Children were forced to work because of their family’s extremely poor condition where they may be needed to drop out of school. In most kinds of