Child Labor in America

At the close of the 19th century, more than 2 million American children under age 16—some as young as 4 or 5—were employed on farms, in mills, canneries, factories, mines and offices, or selling newspapers and fruits and vegetables on the streets. The crusaders of the Progressive Era believed child labor was an evil that maimed the children, exploited the poor and suppressed adult wages. The child should be in school till age 16, they demanded, in order to become a good citizen. The battle for and against child labor was fought in the press as well as state and federal legislatures. Several federal efforts to ban child labor were struck down by the Supreme Court and an attempt to amend the Constitution to ban child labor failed to gain enough support. It took the Great Depression and New Deal legislation to pass the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (and receive the support of the Supreme Court). This history of American child labor details the extent to which children worked in various industries, the debate over health and social effects, and the long battle with agricultural and industrial interests to curtail the practice.

Psychiatrist Chaim M. Rosenberg is also an American history researcher and writer. He lives in Chicago, Illinois.

Chaim M. Rosenberg
Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 236
Bibliographic Info: 60 photos, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2013
pISBN: 978-0-7864-7349-6
eISBN: 978-1-4766-0272-1
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments  vi
Preface  1
Introduction  3
1. Cotton and Cotton Mills  9
2. Apprenticeship System  31
3. Florence Kelley  45
4. Settlement Houses—Jane Addams, Julia Lathrop and Lillian Wald  58
5. Reformers and Muckrakers  66
6. Tenements  79
7. In the Mines  90
8. On the Farm  100
9. Distributing the News  110
10. City Work  121
11. At Sea  135
12. Bottles, Silk, Meat and Shoes  145
13. Children at War  153
14. Health and Education of Working Children  160
15. National Child Labor Committee and the U.S. Children’s Bureau  169
16. Lewis Wickes Hine, Photographer Extraordinaire  179
17. The Legal Battle  182
18. Frances Perkins and the New Deal  195
19. Child Labor Today  204
Chapter Notes  211
Bibliography  219
Index  223