The Children Rights Movement took place during the nineteenth century and the Great Depression. Children didn’t have many rights during the time. Since many children were poor and needed to work for survival, many had to work in factories to earn money. People liked hiring children because it was cheaper than hiring adults. Conditions in the factories weren’t safe for children to work in. Children working in factories worked the same amount of time as adults do, but they were paid much less. Some children worked for more than sixty hours over six days a week. Other children sold newspapers on the streets and shined shoes for people. These children were as little as a few years old, and they couldn’t go to school because they had to work. People felt that work would keep children out of trouble. People that tried to help out the children were Jacob Riis, Mother Jones, and President Howard Taft.
When children were working in factories and mills, they didn’t have any health benefits. When they were severely injured, such as a lost finger or a burnt scalp, they were fired from their job. Children wanted to make a difference in this country, but they weren’t old enough to vote to change laws. Jacob Riis took pictures of the terrible working conditions of children working in factories. In one picture, it captured one child working on a machine barefooted with no safety precautions whatsoever.
Children held protests, strikes, and marches to fight for their own rights. Kid Blink led the Newspaper Boy Strike. For this strike, people destroyed the newspapers and refused to work until the price for newspapers went down. Some children fought to go to school and have time to play. Children wrote letters to the President that said that the government should be ashamed that they didn’t pass laws to protect children. President Howard Taft tried to pass laws that would protect children, but they were hard to enforce. Children also fought for better pay and working conditions. In 1912, workers at a Lawrenceville,
Massachusetts mill went on strike. Mother Jones led the Children’s Crusade, a march from Philadelphia to
New York to protest the terrible working conditions for children. The Children’s Crusade had attracted the attention of the media press. One picture captured Mother Jones leading a parade for children’s rights.
Congress investigated the terrible working conditions in the factories and mills. At first, Congress allowed mills in
Virginia to be inspected, but that didn’t work well. There were only two people that inspected the mills. After learning about the difficult times that the children had to experience, President Taft forced factory owners to raise the salaries for the children and pay overtime. The Keating-Owens Act was passed that said that it was illegal to sells goods by children under fourteen years old. It also stated that it was illegal for children over fourteen years old to work for more than eight hours a day, and six days a week.
Children of that time were treated like adults, only worse. They had to work in terrible and unsafe conditions, and they were paid less than adults. Children and adults protested for laws to protect the rights of children and let them live a happy and stress-free childhood, like the children today in 2008. I feel really lucky that I have rights today that protect me from experiencing the terrible things that children back then had to experience. Children today don’t need to suffer like the children back then, and could have a normal childhood.
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