Figure 1.--Tk.

Child labors laws eventually prevented the most serious abuses of children. The effort to achieve those laws was a long, uneven struggle. The process varied from country. In each industrial country the process varied, but in each country industrialist saw any effort to limit their free access to labor, even women, and children, as a moral issue. The British passed three Factory Acts (1833, 44, and 47) which limited the working hours of children in certain circustances. In each instances there was concessions granted factory owners. These laws limited the hours children could be worked. The Factory Act of 1844 regulated the relay system. Some factory owners had avoided limits on the working day for children by developing a relay system. The children might work from 5:00 am to noon and then begin to work again at 1:00 pm under the guise of a new shift. While the 1844 Act regulated this abuse, it granhted factory owners the right to employ children at age 8 insttead of the previous 9 year old limit, his opened up a new supply of potential workers. [Wilson, p. 53.] Child labor laws were passed by states in America. A national law was not passed until 1916, but it was oiverturned by the Supreme Court. It was not until the New Deal that a Federal Law was passed and sustained.

America

Child labor in america as in other countries ws extensively used in American industry because children were willing to work for low wages. Large numbers were employed in unhealthy and unsafe conditions. As many of their parents were employed at wages below the subsistence level, they had no alternative but to take their children out of school and send to work. The progressive movement made child labor legislation a major goal. socially minded photograhers of the turn of the century played a major in exposing the abuses of the children. One of the most impoprtant in America was Lewis Hine. Hines had previously worked in immigrants. The National Child Labor Committee (NCLC) hired Hine in 1908 to document working and living conditions of children in the United States. He worked at this project until 1921. Hines was very aware of the power of his images. He coined the term phoitostory and collaborated with writers in the articles published in newspapers and magazxines. He often wrote elaborate captions. One image of a little boy selling newspapers in the rain explianed that the boy had already had two bouts with pnemonia. The progressives gradually won the debate that children should be in school and women at home. The growing labor movement also wanted to reduce the competition with child labor. Child labor laws and compuldsiry school attendance regulations were passed by states in America. Preident Taft set up the Children's Bureau to address the issue of child labor and other matters affecting children's welfare. Despite state laws, there were still in 1916 over 2 million American children under age 16 out of school and working. A national law was not passed until 1916--The Keating Owens Act. It made it illegal to purchase goods manufctured by children under 14 years of age. Children under 16 were noit permitted to work in mines. The law was overturned by the Supreme Court. Industrial interests argued that child labor was an unconstitunional restraint on commerce. It was not until the New Deal that a Federal Law was passed and sustained--the Fair Labor Standards Act. Unaddressed in the law was agricultural labor. The issue of migrant labor is still a serious concern in the United States.

England

The British passed three Factory Acts (1833, 44, and 47) which limited the working hours of children in certain circustances. In each instances there was concessions granted factory owners. These laws limited the hours children could be worked. The Factory Act of 1844 regulated the relay system. Some factory owners had avoided limits on the working day for children by developing a relay system. The children might work from 5:00 am to noon and then begin to work again at 1:00 pm under the guise of a new shift. While the 1844 Act regulated this abuse, it granhted factory owners the right to employ children at age 8 insttead of the previous 9 year old limit, his opened up a new supply of potential workers. [Wilson, p. 53.]

France

Germany

Italy

Sources

Reed, Lawrence W. "Child labor and the British industrial revolution," Liberty Haven, site accessed August 3, 2003.

Wilson, A.N. The Victorians (W.W. Norton & Co.: New York, 1993), 724p.

Created: August 3, 2003
Last updated: December 21, 2003