Essay on Provisions of New York State Law Regarding Child Labor

Child labor was a big deal and parents have to worry about their child not starving. The food use to be sitting out. If you would it; you would most likely become sick. The kids didn’t get any free time because they were working Child labor law was passed so that only a limited age can work. They would also low pay them for working. In the article (A History Of Child Labor) it states “In the United States it took many years to outlaw child labor. By 1899, 28 states had passed laws regulating child labor. Many efforts were made to pass national child labor law. The U.S. Congress passed two laws, in 1918 and 1922, but the supreme Court declared both unconstitutional. In 1924, Congress proposed a constitutional amendment prohibiting child labor, but the states did not ratify it.” Children coming home late is a problems because the crimes in the city.

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

First of all, during the Gilded age, many children were forced to work in unsanitary work places that contained dangerous machines and harmful substances until laws were passed against child labor. At this period, child labor was a huge issue because many children died before they reached their 10th birthday. The Breaker Boys, as shown in document B, were young boys that separated coal from other minerals as a living. Injuries, sickness, and even death was common between the young boys. The boys had to break up sharp coal with their bare hands, breathe in harmful air, and deal with dangerous factory machines that can potentially kill them. This task was very dangerous for children and was continued to take place until the 1900s. In 1913, the New York State Department of State Bureau declared that “No child under the age of fourteen years shall be employed, permitted, or suffered to work in or in connection with any factory [and].... [n]o child between the aged fourteen and sixteen shall be so employed, permitted or suffered to work unless an

During the 1900s, America’s children went to school and played. Children spent their summer in the sun by doing outside activities like swimming as well as reading books and enjoying an ice cream break. However, as recently as the early years of this century, there were many poor children that did not live the same lifestyle. These children did not have time to play because they spent their days in factories, coalmines, and in fields. Over two million children in America under the age of 16 had jobs that consisted of twelve hours without stopping. Many children were forced to work because many came from poor families who needed the extra help. The brutal conditions of working long hours and unsafe environments lead some individuals to

Throughout history, children have always worked, either as apprentices or servants. However, child labor reached a whole new scale during the time period of the Industrial Revolution. Throughout the time frame of late 1800s-early 1900s, children worked long hours in dangerous factory conditions for very little wages. They were considered useful as laborers because their small stature allowed them to be cramped into smaller spaces, and they could be paid less for their services. Many worked to help support their families, and by doing so, they forwent their education. Numerous nineteenth century reformers and labor groups sought to restrict child labor and to improve working conditions.

Workers went on strike to earn a fair living wage and in 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt stepped in. His commission saw the truth awarded mine workers a wage increase and a nine-hour day. The department of Labor formed to help fix problems of the American worker. New York banned children from working under the age of sixteen for more than nine hours in a factory. To improve safety, in 1911, New York passed laws requiring fire escapes, fire drills and wired windows in all factories. In the next year, New York also passed a law requiring factory workers to have a “one-day-of-rest-in-seven”, meaning they needed to have at least one day break each week. After that, New York also made it illegal to hire children to do factory work in tenements or canneries, and made a fifty four- hour workweek the maximum for any working person under eighteen. (Doc 2)

Conditions of factories were not safe for anyone, let alone a small child. Due to these conditions many children died before their prime. Many children “began work at age 5, and generally died before they were 25” (www.victorianweb.org), America was beginning to lose an entire generation due to these working conditions that so many had to endure. Children were hired at an alarming rate. “In 1870, the first time census reported child workers, there were 750,000 workers in the United States age 15 and under, not including those who worked on family farms or in other family businesses” (“Child Labor in America”), these numbers were not something that was looked over, it astonished many. “A cotton manufactory of 5 or 6000 spindles will employ those 200 children” (Bremner 232). The workforce would continuously grow, hiring more and more children each day. Factories were good for using children as a means of their productivity. “Textile factories, for the most part […] were in the forefront of this industrial revolution, and children formed an essential component of the new industrial workforce” (Bremner 232). Many times without these children working some of these factories would not have survived through the revolution.

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.

In 1833, the Factory Act of 1833 was passed to improve the working conditions for children who labored in factories. A source reveals, “Young children were working very long hours in workplaces where conditions were often terrible,” (Document 10). As this came to the government’s attention, the act was produced by them in an attempt to lessen the abuse of working children, and to treat them more like children. First, the Factory Act limited the hours children could work in factories. The act states, “Children of 9-13 years to work no more than nine hours a day; children of 13-18 years to work no more than 12 hours a day,” (Document 10). Children were also not allowed to work at night. By having working hours reduced, children were able to fit in time to play, sleep, and get an education. It also reduced fatigue, as the children weren’t on their feet as long, and they got in more time to sleep. Secondly, within the act, there was a rule limiting the age children must be to work in factories. No children under the age of nine were allowed to work in the factories,” (Document 10). Although this decreased the amount of money coming in for each family, it allowed the children to get educations, have more free time, and help their

It is estimated that one in six of the world’s children are working in unacceptable conditions and that's about 180 million children worldwide (Kilcullen 218). That is a great deal of children that are exposed to harm or exploitation. The opposing side believes that these poor countries need child labor to survive, that it is alright to pay children low wages for the work they do, and do not believe that schooling is as important as work. By regulating child labor laws, governments would be able to enforce safer working conditions, increase wages to meet the cost of living, and mandate education for better opportunities even though the opposing side disputes these reasons and stance.

One problem in the 1900s was child labor, which was not an uncommon sight in the factories. The children who worked at these factories would be exposed to harsh chemicals and could possibly lose and arm or limb to the machineries. Children as young as 16 years old would work in those unsafe, overcrowded factories instead of going to school to receive an education. To resolve the child labor issue, many states begun passing laws that made child labor illegal. As shown in the illustration in document 7, the state of Georgia passed the Georgia Child Labor laws, which took children out of Georgia Factories and into schools for education (document 7). Also shown in document 2, in

Unlike today, children of the 1800’s were given jobs that have dangerous machines that can chop “little fingers, arms and legs”. They were also forced to work for long hours which vary from 10 to 14 hours each day! The children in Lowell worked in ”very dangerous places” that can lead to “injuries and even deaths.” Through the 10 to 14 hours of labor “factories put out fumes and toxins.” This is being supported by the article; Childhood Lost: Child Labor During the Industrial Revolution. In the novel, Lyddie decided to work and not break the rules of working in the mills. Throughout the novel, she decided not to sign the petition that limits the amount of hours of working in the Lowell Mills. Finally, Lyddie decided to fight back and went to

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

Children most of the time worked in mines, glass factories, textiles, canaries, and home industries. A lot of these industries are filled with dangers that can easily kill them. In this quote “Children as young as six years old during the industrial revolution worked hard hours for little or no pay” (Child labor in factories). A good number of these kids were harassed and mistreated by the factory bosses. If children didn’t arrive on time to work, they would have to be punished by the factory bosses. The punishment was that the children would have to sprint up and down the factory aisle until they were completely drained out of energy and they had to do this nude carrying a backpack full of heavy objects. This caused a lot of children to develop

Child labor is considered as a form of child abuse, it being the exploitation of a child’s rights and freedoms. Therefore, child labour is when underage children are employed, this happens because a child labourer is paid less than an adult labourer. Consequently employers have more children working for them because they spend less paying the children.