During the late eighteen hundreds to early nineteen hundreds children did not often go to school for an education instead they went out onto the streets and worked long hard hours to try and help their families. Most parents in that time did not make enough to support their families forcing them to force their kids to help out. After years of working for low wages and loosing their jobs because of injuries and no health benefits they felt it was time for a change. Mother Jones and Jacob Reese were determined to help.
Young children worked long hours out on the streets selling news papers. They had to sell over fifty news papers out of one hundred just to pay back the news paper company. Children would start this at four or five years of age and would stand on street corners all day trying to sell news papers instead of being in school. Older children often worked in factories working with heavy machineries. This was very dangerous because their fingers and hair often got caught in the machines, this would cause them to loose their jobs because they were unable to work.
There are many pictures and documents from this time that are now considered primary sources, one document was the child labor law. The law was only children over the age of twelve could work in factories and they could only work ten hours a day. This law was ignored by most factory owners and companies.
Children tried striking and marching on their own but this did not do much good because they were only kids and did not have much say in the government. Their marches caught some adult’s attention, like Mother Jones and Jacob Reese. Mother Jones helped the children organize a march to see the president from Philadelphia to
Washington D.C. The children walked all the way there and the president refused to see them. Jacob Reese took pictures of children at work to show the injustice. These pictures are primary sources. Many pictures showed small children working on the streets or in factories working dangerous jobs. These protests were successful because laws were changed saying children had to get a certain level of education and could not work until they were older.
The children’s protests were successful because today you must be at lease fourteen years old to work and you can only work a certain number of hours weekly. I know this from looking at primary sources like documents or pictures from this time, this is also shown by working papers children have today proving they are fourteen and can work.
This movement is important to study because it affects the lives of children everyday. If it was not for these kids who protested child labor, many of the people writing essays for you to read and studying this topic would be out on the streets and in factories working for low wages. After studying this movement I feel like I am very lucky to be able to go to school and learn everyday instead of having to work. I am happy I can study until I am ready to work so I can get a good job and support myself and I would not have to depend on anyone else.
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