The Children's Right's Movement

The Children’s Right’s Movement

       The children’s rights movement is about children being forced to work, also working at illegal ages. This act began in about the mid 1800’s. There were lots of participants in making the laws of child labor against the law; Mother Jones, Jacob Riis, journalist, Lewis Hine, a photographer.

Children were forced to work also 60 hours for six days a week. The jobs were also very dangerous, some children lost body parts. Although it was thought that giving a child a job would keep them out of trouble. Store owners should pay proper salaries. In the early 1870’s, it was reported that 750,000 child workers were in factories, 10 years later it increased to about 1,200,000.

Mother Jones was a woman who took a lead role in the labor movement. Her birth name is Mary Harris Jones, she was a dress maker in
Chicago. A fire destroyed her shop in 1871. She also helped strike railroad workers. The cruelty that went on was raging people. Another helper in the children’s rights movement was Charles Dickens. He showed the public the “evils of child labor” in a novel called “Oliver Twist”.

States had passed law from 1802 to 1878 stating: shortened hours, improved conditions, and raised the age a little. By 1899 a total of 28 states had a law or two about child labor.
United States passed two laws but they were declared unconstitutional. Then again in 1938, the passed the Fair Labor Standard Act. It was established to fix minimum ages of 16 for work during school hours, 14 for certain jobs after school, and 18 for dangerous jobs.

Laws are not always followed and child labor is probably still a problem.