Personal Narrative: Child Labor In The United States

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.

Child Labor During The Progressive Era Before the extensive reforms in child labor during the Progressive Era, a substantial number of children were working with long hours and meager salaries, especially after the industrialization of factories. Due to the fact that business owners found many benefits in hiring children rather than adults, such as their smaller sizes and lower salary requirements, child labor was extremely widespread. The census of 1890 disclosed the fact that more than a million children, who ranged from the ages of 10-15, endured child labor. Children experienced many ailments such as heavy coal dust from working with coal and fumes from glasswork. Child Labor

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 Chicago, around the eighteen-hundreds, there was the desire for cheap labor. Consumer demand for clothes and manufactured products played a big part in this issue. The desire for manufacturers to meet the increasing consumer demand ultimately led to the hiring of children and other individuals. To reduce expenditures, working conditions did not play a major concern in the factory owners’ decisions. These factories were not very safe and sanitation was poor. Oftentimes many of these sweatshop workers were found working many hours a day for a long period of time with very little, if any pay. Florence Kelley was a factory inspector who fought against child labor and the existence of sweatshops. Through her experiences and descriptions, we

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.

The novel Between Shades of Grey by Ruta Sepetys does an excellent job illustrating the troubling issue of child labor. The extent of child labor in a country is directly linked by the nature and extent of poverty within it. Child labor deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity. It is detrimental to physical and mental development. Today, there are an estimated 246 million child laborers around the globe. This irritating social issue is not only violates a nation’s minimum age laws , it also involves intolerable abuse, such as child slavery, child trafficking, debt bondage, forced labor, and illicit activities. In Between Shades of Grey , Lina and her ten year old brother are unrightfully charged 25 years of

A huge issue that was happening during the Progressive Era was child labor; Lewis Hine was one of many brave investigative journalist that helped change legislation. Children would work long hours with horrible working conditions, get paid very little and were forced to forgo an education. Not only were they going through this, but the work they did had an long-term impact on their health. Child labor is terrible and it is still going on today. This topic needs to be brought up again so people can become more aware and informed about it.

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

I began working at the age of eight years old at the restaurant. For me it was exciting, I wasn’t doing anything that I did not do at home, but I was making money. For an eight year old it was like allowance but it was much more than any of my friends. My dad admired the fact that I always worked extra hard, but little did he know that I saw what happened to my older sibling who were trying to live a normal teenage life, and being shunned for not wanting to give their all to his dream. I was eight years old, I really did not have a choice. By the time I was ten years old, the restaurant had been going pretty well, so dad decided to open a candy store next door to the restaurant for guess who to manage, yes me. I was his pride and joy and he knew that with my hard work that I would be a success. Of course at ten years old, I was completely excited for the opportunity. Little did I know that the people that I would be managing would be my older siblings who were not to excited about having to answer to a ten year old.