Child Labor In The Progressive Era

The Industrial Revolution began in England during the late 1700’s. This movement introduced improved agricultural methods, textile industries, and the export of machine-made goods. Because the agricultural business was finding more efficient ways to manage their products, the working class decreased in this field (Document 7). This extreme drop in numbers led to people whining for a steady, supportive job. Luckily for the thousands of unemployed, the demand for factory workers increased (Document 2).

Reading a variety of resources allows readers to see different sides writers may take. Morris, Josephson, and Nuechterlein each offer a unique perspective to view the successful men of the industrial revolution in an effort to form their own opinion and belief they generate from their

As the rate of industrialization in America grew during the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, child labor became more and more common. The rapid growth of the economy and the vast amounts of poor immigrants during the Industrial Age in America justified the work of children as young as the age of three. By 1900, over two million children were employed. However, the risks of involving child labor greatly outweighed the positives; child labor was inhumane, cruel, and caused physical deformities among children. Children typically worked in coal mines, mills, and factories which contained many life-threatening hazards.

The Industrial Revolution refers to a time of greatly increased output of machine-made goods that emerged within the textile industry. The Industrial Revolution, which began in England in the late 1700’s, had a wide range of positive and negative effects on the economic and social life of the people of England. The results of the Industrial Revolution have been interpreted many ways through the various social classes of Britain; the peasants who suffered from the dangers of the factories and tenements and the upper class who benefited from capital and enterprises. Although the Industrial Revolution positively affected Britain’s iron production and added conveniences and comforts to daily life for the upper class, the dangers of the factories’

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.

Many parents needed their wages to make ends meet. In Document C from The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets by Jane Adams 1909, Jane states how children enter factory life when the law allows them to, and children end up not having childhoods. She writes that people are so caught up with the marvelous achievements of their industry and end up forgetting the children who have to work to help out as well. In Document G, a court case Hammer v. Dagenhart 1918, the father of two sons one under fourteen years old and another one between fourteen and sixteen explains his concern about the exploitation of his children in a cotton mill. He says its concerning that children are allowed to work more than eight hours a day and six days a week.

Throughout human history, children were thought of as servants, apprentices, or a means to ease workload. Children would work on the family farm or a family business. They could be easily taken advantage of compared to adults. The exploitation of children for labor without concern for their education or welfare was common and even the norm. No special concern about children existed.

Child labor during the 18th and 19th century did not only rapidly develop an industrial revolution, but it also created a situation of difficulty and abuse by depriving children of edjucation, good physical health, and the proper emotional wellness and stability. In the late 1700 's and early 1800 's, power-driven machines replaced hand labor for making most manufactured items. Many of America 's factories needed a numerous amount of workers for a cheap salary. Because of this, the amount of child laborers have been growing rapidly over the early 1800s.

Essayist, Florence Kelley, once wrote, “For the sake of the children, for the Republic in which these children will vote after we are dead, and for the sake of our cause, we should enlist the workingmen voters, with us, in this task of freeing the children from toil!” (Kelley 92-96). This quote can be traced back to her account, in which she presents before the National American Suffrage Association in Philadelphia in 1905. In it, she vividly depicts the horrors of child labor, providing countless reports, varying child labor laws throughout the states and ultimately, a solution to the dilemma. In author Florence Kelley’s essay … , she employs logos and rhetorical questions, in order to fortify her stance on child labor.

After reading Upton Sinclair’s book, The Jungle, child labor, urbanization, industrialization and immigration are problem quite sore during 1880-1910 period. Firstly, the future of the world depends on the child. However, the lives of children today are causing people to worry about. According to the Labor Law, provisions on workers be aged 16 years or older, able to work, working under labor contracts, paid and subject to the management and administration of the employer.

Child labor was a great concern in the Industrial revolution but very few people did something to stop it. Women and Children were forced to work more than 10 hours a day with only forty minutes to have lunch. Elizabeth Bentley once said that they didn’t have any time to have breakfast or drink anything during the day. They worked standing up and if they didn’t do their work on time they were strapped (whipped). Children were treating like they were not important, like they didn’t deserve a better life.

“Child labor and poverty are inevitably bound together and if you continue to use the labor of children as the treatment for the social disease of poverty, you will have both poverty and child labor to the end of time” (Grace Abbott). The issue of child labor has been around for centuries. Its standing in our world has been irrevocably stained in our history and unfortunately, our present. Many great minds have assessed this horrific issue and its effect on our homes, societies, and ultimately, our world.

Child Labor Laws Florence Kelley, who is a social reformer, read a speech that addresses “child labor laws and [improving] conditions for working women.” This was specifically made so that these problems would be solved in the near future with a grand audience, which was located in a “convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in Philadelphia on July 22, 1905”, as its’ witness. Indubitably, she starts off with using techniques that attract people of high morality. Using age and how some states have worse laws than the latter.

There are many reasons that cause child labor: Poverty and unemployment levels are high – As you see, the most of employed children work in less developed countries by economy. In such countries poor families and children may rely upon child labor in order to improve their chances of attaining basic necessities. According to U.N statistics more than one-fourth of the people around the world live in poverty that is caused by the high unemployment levels. Free education is limited – U.N estimated that approximately 75 million children were not attending school. The education for the whole world’s children costs 10-30 Billion dollars that is 0.7% - 2% of the annual cost of global military spending.

Pros #1 Child labor is very important towards poor families who need extra help bringing food and money in the house. Most children under the age of ten start working in order to help bring in a decent amount of money in order to help their parents and siblings survive. Children are not incompetent; most realize when their parents are struggling to make ends meat, they try to help out as much as they can and most decided that, even though they are young, they have to start doing more therefore most decide to start working. The jobs they receive often don’t pay much so in order to have higher pay most children work for hours on end in order to bring in more money especially if they come from extremely poor families. “Victor chapani started working when he was 10- a few hours a day- rounding up passengers minibuses in his impoverished city of El Alto, Bolivia... earning less than a dollar an hour… “United,” he says, sounding like a seasoned adult laborite, “we as child workers can achieve anything.”