Fight for the Children
How One Committee Revolutionized Child Labor Reform
Enacting Child Labor Laws
Excerpt of Chapter 529 of the Laws of 1913, prohibiting the employment of children less than fourteen years of age in manufacturing work intenement houses.
Source: NYS Archives
http://www.archives.nysed.gov/education/showcase/200910labor/web_images/child_labor.jpg
Aside from the public, the National Child Labor Committee often reached out for the support of politicians in order for legal action to be imposed on child labor in the states. During investigations to different regions of the U.S., along with lobbying they would talk with union workers, interview important officials, help draft new legislative bills, and revise current laws- all aimed at regulating child labor in the states. Their efforts paid off with their first major success in 1909 when they aided in the backing of a law which enforced a sixteen year old limit to Pennsylvania's bituminous mines.
However, the NCLC did not avoid failure. A problem with trying to enact child labor laws back then was the different ranges in leniency of child labor in each state. This was especially a problem in the southern states where southern industry and mill owners were particularly outraged that their cheap work force was being threatened. Many of them signed petitions to repeal certain child labor laws. The legislations themselves had loopholes that business took advantage of. The fact of the matter was that child labor laws were not being enforced equally in all states.
Child labor cartoon by Herbet Johnson (1912)
Credit: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Child_labour_cartoon_Hine_no_2870..jpg
It is clearly indicated that child labor, especially in low-paid, unslanderized types of work, is increasing. I am convinced that nation-wide minimum standards are necessary and that a way should be found promptly to crystallize in legal safeguards public opinion in behalf of the elimination of child labor .
-Franklin Delano Roosevelt
32nd President of the United States
In letter to Governors, Jan. 8, 1937
The President is right. The child labor constitutional amendment should be passed now. It has already been ratified by states covering a majority of the country's population....
Surely the thirty years in which such state alws have been strongly urged should be enough opportunity for recalcitrant areas to have risen to their own responsibilities. Some of the states which have not ratified the Amendment have set examples by the most progressive of laws. But their industries suffer from competition of those states which refuse to give up this hideous advantages.
-Herbert Hoover
31st President of the United States Jan. 10, 1937
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