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Child%20Labor%20in%20America

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Title: Child%20Labor%20in%20America


1
Child Labor in America
  • Building a Great Nation on the Backs of its Youth

2
When is child labor ok?
  • When is child labor a useful and healthy
    introduction to work?
  • How do you distinguish between freedom and
    idleness, which may be less wholesome than some
    types of work?
  • Is some work suitable for young children and how
    do you distinguish suitable?

3
Factors for child labor
  • Reflected socio-economic class stratification
  • Immigration and tenement living
  • Availability of children and economic forces

4
The facts
  • In 1870, the first U.S. census to report child
    labor numbers counted 750,000 workers under the
    age of 15, not including children who worked for
    their families in businesses or on farms.
  • By 1911, more than two million American children
    under the age of 16 were working

5
Types of labor
  • Street Trades- newsies, delivery and errand boys,
    shoe shiners
  • Industrial factory workers
  • Textiles, food preparation, garment/ piece goods
  • Breaker Boys- coal miners
  • Agriculture/Farm labor

6
Textiles
7
Textiles
8
Street Trades
9
vices
10
Breaker boys
11
miners
12
Agricultural workers
13
Seafood workers
14
Labor conditions
  • 68-72 hour work weeks
  • From Can till Cain t
  • Lived in company owned houses, towns
  • Paid in company script for overpriced goods at
    the company store

15
Labor conditions
  • Tenement living in slums
  • Homework after shifts were over
  • Immigrant families targeted because some state
    laws did not apply to immigrants

16
Homework/tenement living
17
Regulation
  • Started slowly at the state level banning
    employment of underage children
  • Motivations for regulation varied
  • Economic, humane, and social
  • Children were viewed as a source of low-wage
    labor that was in competition with adults

18
Regulation-Reasons
  • Products of child labor competed against adult
    made products causing market pressures to force
    down wages and living standards
  • Health and safety hazards as well as exhaustion
    left children ill prepared for education
  • As adults they were ill-prepared for employment
    elsewhere, which led to cyclical poverty

19
Trade unions the nclc
  • AFL leader Samuel Gompers favored child labor
    laws
  • 1904 the National Child Labor Committee was
    formed to end child exploitation in the workplace
  • State labor laws were loosely constructed and
    difficult to enforce

20
Opponents of child labor regulation argued
  • Unavoidable stage of development
  • Necessary for survival
  • Essential for regional competition
  • Southern manufacturers viewed labor restrictions
    as an effort of northern agitators to kill the
    infant industries of the south

21
In Defense of Child Labor
  • I believe there are just about as many children
    spoiled by indulgence as there are by overwork.
    -Daniel A. Tompkins Carolina mill owner
  • There is such a thing as too much education for
    working people sometimes.
    -Charles Harding
    Merchants Woolen Co.

22
Federal legislation
  • After a few unsuccessful attempts, Congress
    passed the Owen-Keating Act in 1916
  • 1918 the US Supreme Court declared the law
    unconstitutional
  • Congress and Gompers tried again unsuccessfully
    in 1919 and 1924

23
Federal Legislation
  • Finally in 1938 Congress passed the Fair Labor
    Standards Act aka. The Federal Wage and Hour Law

24
Fair Labor standards act
  • Set a 40 hour work week
  • Minimum wage of 40 cents per hour
  • Prohibited child labor under 16 and restricted
    when and for how long children could work

25
Child Labor in America
  • Building a Great Nation on the Backs of its Youth
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