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Child Labor In The 1900's Essay

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Child Labor in the Early 1900's There was a time in America when it was common for children to be working intense amounts in the factories of the labor industry. By 1904, 50,000 workers in the South were under the age of 16 with 20,000 under the age of 12. Having children working in the industry was dangerous and unreasonable and resulted in countless accidents in the workspace. In the early 1900's, children who worked in the labor industry were exploited as they were forced to work long hours, were deprived of an education, and ultimately put their lives at risk until The National Child Labor Committee began advocating for reform. After the Civil War, technology began to rapidly advance and it changed the conditions of work and the range …show more content…

President Taft finally signed the bill establishing the Children's Bureau. While the agency had no legal power, it collected data which presented a true image of the conditions the children in the industry faced. During this research process, the public became more supportive of the reform and federal interaction. When Woodrow Wilson became President, he was not a supporter of the federal legislation, but as the public perceptions were changing he saw it as a political necessity to support the cause. The NCLC ended up endorsing a substantial bill that banned children under age 14 from factories, workshops, and canneries and children under 16 from mines and quarries; it also restricted the amount of hours per day they were permitted to work. There were oppositions towards the bill, but it was easily passed by the House 343 to 46. Despite the significant achievement of the legislation, the law only affected the about 150,000 children working in mines, quarries, canneries, mills. The law left about 1,850,000 children unaffected working in home-based businesses, the streets, and the fields. It was not until 1938 that Congress finally passed a child labor law (Fair Labor Standards Act) that ensured that when young people work, they are safe and it does not jeopardize their health or educational opportunities. There were many debates and highs and lows in the fight to end child labor (Schuman Part

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