I chose to research the children’s rights movement. It went on from the late nineteenth century to the great depression. There were some people who saw the seriousness of this like Louis Hines, Mrs. Battaglia, Mother Jones, and President William Howard Taft. Once, the children were protesting on the streets and Mother Jones saw them and helped organize a march.
Children were mistreated and forced to work under terrible conditions. Children worked at the age of five or younger selling newspapers on the street for hours and they would rarely make a prophet. There were no health benefits, and no protection. If they were injured, they would lose their jobs. Many children lost fingers or got cut working with machines. Many states even passed child labor laws. Those laws said that children working in factories had to be at least twelve years old and shouldn’t work for more than ten hours a day. Unfortunately, those laws were sometimes ignored.
They tried to stop these injustices by having marches, protests and many other things. One person that was a big help to the movement was Mother Jones. She did a lot to help the children. She organized many protest and in the end, her and the children were successful. She was very devoted to helping the children get their rights. The methods were successful because they showed others that even children’s rights were very important. People realized they were wrong and they made and enforced new laws.
In my opinion the biggest achievement that was made was the Fair Labor Standards Act. This act stated that any child under the age of 14 cannot work full time. Another thing that it did was it made sure children attended school until they were at least 15. It also said that you had to be 18 to work in mines or mills. This law was passed in 1938.
I think this movement was important to study because children are important to society and it was awful that they were so badly mistreated. I am thankful that I am not treated the way children back then were treated. Children have come a long way since then and I am very glad that they did.
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