Before the Fair Labor Standards Act was passed, two major national law were passed to regulate child labor. The Keating-Owen Act of 1916 prohibited the sale of any goods produced by children in factories and mines. However, in the 1918 Hammer v. Dagenhart case, the Supreme Court ruled the Keating-Owen bill unconstitutional since the Court felt that the regulation of child labor conditions was a state authority the federal government had no power to infringe on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                        Source: www.thedailybanter.com

 

 

     

Source: Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Archives                      Source: National Archives

 

Another federal child law called the Child Labor Tax Law was put into effect in 1919 and taxed  but but was once again declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the 1921 case of Bailey vs. Drexel Furniture Co.

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The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 

 

However, this next federal law caused great impact in child labor reform. The Fair Labor Standards Act was passed in June 1938 under a series of New Deal programs President Franklin D. Roosevelt had initiated for social and economic reform in response to the devastating Great Depression. The law prohibited child labor in industries involved in interstate commerce, or the production of goods. It defined child labor as the employment of children under sixteen, or under eighteen if the job was deemed hazardous.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

           

               Source: http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs155/1108762609255/archive/1111678339912.html

 

More importantly, the FLSA also set a national minimum wage and maximum working hours for workers, including children. The NCLC rallied behind the law and worked closely with the Children's Bureau to get the most enforceable child labor provisions written into it.

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Antithesis

The committee fought for a more direct way of restricting child labor and wanted the Children's Bureau to administer the act. Although the Children's Bureau was responsible in carrying out the act as a government organization, the NCLC had a bigger impact on the passing of the Fair Labor Standards Act since it was the committee, particularly Mr. Alexander McKelway, that had worked strenuously to create the bureau in the first place back in 1912. Thus, the National Child Labor Committee played a crucial role in the passing of the Fair Labor Standards Act.