Child Labor In The 1800s Essay

Kelley provide Georgia as an example and a comparison to how other states try to handle child labor. Kelley says, “In Alabama the law provides that a child under sixteen years of age shall not work

Coalmining was a prominent industry throughout eastern Pennsylvania, northern Maryland, and Wyoming. In 1885, legislation was passed in order to restrict the working age of miners. Breaker boys, who worked aboveground to sort slate, rocks, and other debris from the coal, were required to be at least twelve years of age. Underground miners were required to be at least fourteen years of age. Boys ' parents often presented a fake birth certificate with an altered date of birth in order to have their children, who were often as young as five or six years of age, work in the mines.

The court case of Hammer v. Dagenhart is a extremely crucial case over child labor laws and child labor in general. A brief syllabus of the case is that children were working long hours in factories in the early 1900s which were causing health issues for them and just the simple fact that is was these were not fit for children to be operating. Some of the places/worksites that had child labor included mills, factories, industrial workshops and other similar to those with tedious work that adults wouldn't do for the pay they were offering. This took place just prior to the Great Depression and already money was hard to come by. Therefore many of these kids were just trying to support their families and help out with what they could.

Although it was later declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, this act shortened working hours and prohibited the interstate sale of goods that were produced from child labor. Even though this act failed to be passed until the 1940s, Wilson passed another law called the Adamson Act. The Adamson Act ensured an eight-hour workday for railroad workers, and more pay if they had to work overtime. “He championed labor laws to institute an 8-hour day on railroads (and time-and-a-half for overtime), and to prohibit the shipment of any product produced by child labor in interstate commerce.” (Bushong).

They worked in hazardous conditions that often injured them or made them ill. There were no laws put in place to protect the children. European Industrialization benefited greatly from accessible and affordable child laborers throughout the 1800’s. Children sacrificed their health and education to earn a family living.

What did children face before there were child labor laws? Many jobs that children attended to were too hard for them and were given unfair pay or just no pay at all. They had to work in unsafe working conditions. Children had

Child Labor was a huge flaw in the American system before the Progressive Era. Children were unskilled, but they could use their puny hands to reach in and under machinery. This became a problem, because fingers and sometimes limbs were lost. First, the National Child Labor Committee was formed to watch over the children. In 1916, the Keating-Owen Act was passed that made any good made by a child illegal to be transported out of state.

The jobs children did depended on their how old they were and their gender. Children in the US worked in large mines, glass factories, home industries, messengers, and more. The children here were treated like slaves. They did not get paid much at all. They also had to work all day long in the 1800’s.

The NEAF (New England Association of Farmers) and other people working fnaly denounced Child Labor. In 1836 Massachusetts was the first state to present Child Labor Law, Which was set as to children under 15 could go to school to a minimum of 3 months per year. The NTCU proposed state minimum age laws for factory work. In 1842 Massachusetts reduced children to work 10 hours per day some of the states were doing the same but not consistently enforcing their laws. The Working Men’s Party wanted to prohibit the employment of children younger than 14.

After a long history of sending children to work, first laws were introduced to

These reforms included stricter safety standards, shorter work hours, and the elimination of dangerous working conditions. As a result of these efforts, New York and other states began to pass laws that regulated child labor and improved working conditions for all workers. In New York, for example, the state passed the Labor Law of 1913, which prohibited children under the age of 14 from working in factories and required employers to provide safety equipment and training.

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.

Child labor in Victorian England The children would work all day and would not get much rest, they would work to help their families. Also they would work in coal mines in the dark. Child labor in Victorian England was awful because it said that the children would climb chimneys and clean them also they would work in coal mines in the dark. What caused children to work was that in england because they thought that the kids were slaves and that they needed more young people to work so they chose the children. In (www.VictorianChildren.org/Victorian-child labor/) it said that “children were the right people to help people work and they were the norm of the 1800’s”.

In the article “Time Machine (1902): Children working in the Pennsylvania coal mines” by McClure’s Magazine, it is showing how the kids in Pennsylvania have had to work underage, with nothing but a lying father and no proof that they are below age. This is known, because in the article it states “Children's age certificates are often false. When a father wishes to place his son in a breaker, he obtains an ‘age blank’ from a mine inspector. In its spaces, he writes some age at which it is legal for a boy to work.” This is showing, as stated previously, that kids work underage, and there isn’t any proof that they are actually lying.

Child labor was a great problem in the Industrial Revolution. Factory owners usually hired women and children rather than men. They said that men expected higher wages, and they suspected that they were more likely to rebel against the company. Women and children were forced to work from six in the morning to seven at night, and this was when they were not so busy. They were forced to arrive on time and they couldn’t fall behind with their work because if they did they were whipped and punished.