A Rough Life For Children

By LizF.  8-12

            The topic that I chose is Children’s Rights. The Children’s Rights movement took place in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. It took place because children were being mistreated. They were paid low wages for the long shifts that they were working in factories. Some of the participants who helped with the movement were President Taft, Lewis Hines, Jacob Riis and Mother Jones.

            The way children were being treated in factories was just wrong. The children were working in very dangerous conditions. Many children lost fingers, got their hair torn out, and got very bad burns. The children had no protection or health care. The children were also paid very low wages for the amount of time they spent working. Some of the children worked sixty hours a week.

            There were many different methods of resistance to help children gain their rights. In 1899, the Newsies (boys who sold newspapers on the street), went on strike because the price of 100 papers increased. Mother Jones was a woman who worked very hard to get children their rights. She was 73 years old when she led the Children’s Crusade. The Children’s Crusade was a march from Philadelphia to Washington D.C. Mother Jones marched with children to
Washington D.C. to see the president and tell him about the terrible working conditions. When they got to
Washington D.C., the president rejected them. Jacob Riis was another person who helped the children. He went to factories and took photographs of the children in the very dangerous conditions, in which they were working.

            In 1912, President Taft took a step closer to giving children the rights they deserved. Due to the strike that workers went on in a mill in
Massachusetts, Congress felt the need to investigate the factories. Congress wanted to know why workers were striking. When Taft learned of the terrible conditions, he forced factory owners to raise salaries and pay overtime to its workers. The strike was a huge turning point.

            I learned a great deal of information while studying Children’s Rights. I never knew how bad children were treated. I cannot believe that there were children that were only eight years old working in factories. I think it is important for kids my age to research this topic, so that we know how good our lives are. There are now laws to protect us from the terrible conditions that children used to have to deal with.