Child Labor In The 1900's

By the early 1900s people started to call child labor, “child slavery”. They want this slavery to end. They argue for kids to have the opportunity to be educated and have a better future. Their hours putting effort on this demand give results when they established in 1912 Children’s Bureau. (Documentation of Child Labor,

By 1910, there were just about two million working children in America. They were required to work incredibly long days, somewhere from 18 to 20 hours a day, from dusk ‘til dawn. These kids worked to help their families, for their livelihoods, and often lived in places owned by the factories they worked for. Oftentimes, they were paid with overpriced and inflated goods from the company, which made them increasingly more dependent on their employers.1 Many physical difficulties were the norm.

Child Labor has always been an issue in the United States. The problem today however is not near as bad as it use to be. By 1900, there were 1-2 million children working various jobs across the states. These children primarily worked in factories, fields, mines, seafood plants, and as newsies boys. Employers believed they could benefit from the children

“The demand for labor grew, and in the late 19th and early 20th centuries many children were drawn into the labor force. Factory wages were so low that children often had to work to help support their families. However, child laborers rarely experienced their youth” (National Archives). Child labor was a “normal” thing to many people

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.

With the wave of immigration occuring in the years before the Gilded Age, many factories created jobs for all these new immigrants. However, as all of these jobs were for unskilled laborers that immigrated to the U.S., they didn’t pay extremely well, and led most of these workers into poverty. Sometimes, this poverty got so bad that even children of the family between ages 10 to 15 had to begin working for their families. Several problems arise when children of too young age are forced into working, especially when there are no laws correctly restricting the amount and extent of the work minors should be allowed to do. As seen in Document 3, Jane Addams paints the picture of child labor in in Chicago in 1912, in which only one child labor law existed, which only applied to children working in mines to protect them. Although this is great initiative, it does not accomplish much in other fields of work that minors were forced to work in. Because of the lack of child labor laws in other fields, Addams specifically describes a few children injured by a machine at a factory in Chicago. She continues to portray the point that

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.

The use of child labor became so bad that by 1900, 18% of all American workers were under the age of 16. (History Channel) Most of this workforce were children of poor families, making it almost impossible for the child to leave their job. Their pay and compensation was only despite working 12 hour days, 6 days a week. (Social Welfare)

Throughout the 1700’s and the early 1800’s child labor was a major issue in American society. Children have always worked for family businesses whether it was an agricultural farming situation or working out of a family business in some type of workplace. This was usually seen in families of middle or lower class because extra help was needed to support the family. Child labor dramatically changed when America went through the Industrial Revolution. When America’s industrial revolution came into play, it opened a new world to child labor. Children were now needed to work in factories, mills, and mines. These were not ordinary jobs for young children, these jobs required much time, effort, and hard work. “American

During the 18 and beginning of the 19th century in certain regions of the U.S child labor made up more than 40 percent of the population (Wolensky). That’s almost half of the working population. Since the beginning of time children have always been known to help their families with domestic tasks. Most of these kids worked in factories because they were easy to control and paid less than adults. Kids earned less than half of what adults made in the work force. In these factories they usually cleaned under and inside machines while functioning because of their small size.. That’s how these kids felt as it was described in a article in our history book. They were always in danger of getting hurt or even dying, which many did. Kids as young

The only thing they had was work and home. Child Labor had taken its place in America during the late 1800’s. This heinous but legal practice existed for many reasons. Arguably the biggest advantage owners had in hiring children was that while adults were in a position where they could go on strike, children were easily replaceable. In result, many young labourers had held their tongues when it came to the unjust encounters they had in their work experience.

After the Civil War, the availability of natural resources, new inventions, and a receptive market combined to fuel an industrial boom. The demand for labor grew, and in the late 19th and early 20th centuries many children were drawn into the labor force. Factory wages were so low that children often had to work to help support their families. The number of children under the age of 15 who worked in industrial jobs for wages climbed from 1.5 million in 1890 to 2 million in 1910. Businesses liked to hire children because they worked in unskilled jobs for lower wages than adults, and their small hands made them more adept at handling small parts and tools. Children were seen as part of the family economy. Immigrants and rural migrants often sent their children to work, or worked alongside

In the year 1870, 739,164 children between the ages of 10 and 15 were employed in the United falling just short of 20 percent of the workforce. Thirty years later in the 1900 census, two million children were working in mills, mines, fields, factories, stores, and on city streets across the United States. But with increasing numbers of children being put into the workforce, the conditions in which they worked rapidly declined. Such rapidly declining conditions were due to “compulsory education laws, massive inflows of inexpensive immigrant labor, and technological innovations such as the widespread use of telephones instead of messenger boys.” Primarily being employed in the farming, factories, and transportation, industrial safety became a major issue. Around 1900, industrial jobs caused approximately 30,000 deaths and 1 million injuries per year, and factory owners seldom took any responsibility. The most dangerous industry was amongst the railroads where “Fires, machinery accidents, train wrecks and other misfortunes were common.” Because such a large portion of the work force was made up of children, the formation of “the child-saving movement” began, and started to gain some national momentum.

Before child labor was really a thing, there were strikes that the adult employers were holding because of low wages and other problems. The reason the employers chose to hire children instead of adults is because they would work for low wages, and also faster when it came to production and easier to train. The reason children have to go to work in the first place is to be able to aid their families in need. My question is how can children aid their families, when they can't even aid

(Laslett, 1970) Coupled with these innovations was the new concept of applying scientific methodology to industrial processes. (Laslett, 1970) All of these changes, while beneficial to businesses, did little to improve the lot of the industrial laborer. (Laslett, 1970) One of the key complaints of an entirely unregulated labor force in the late 1800s was the extensive use and abuse of child labor. In 1870, nearly three quarters of a million children between the ages of ten and fifteen worked in hazardous aspects of manufacturing, agriculture and street trade. (Laslett, 1970) By 1880, that number was over one point one million, or one in every six children in that age group. (Laslett, 1970) By 1900, that number doubled. The conditions under which children worked were very dangerous. They worked the same shifts as adults (about 12 hours a day, six days a week), denying them the opportunity for school and play. (Laslett, 1970) The factories, mills, mines and other work venues in which they labored were unsafe and unregulated. Children were also often used in the most dangerous aspects of industrial work, such as clearing jammed machines or working in confined spaces too small for adults. (Laslett, 1970) In 1881, only seven states had any kind of regulation laws for child laborer. Desperate for money to survive, immigrants and working-class Americans forged