Back in the 1870's, factories were very harmful and dangerous places to work .  Yet, they still seemed to hire young children from the ages of 8 to the age of 18 . Children were getting hurt and nothing was being done about this.  With the help of many people that cared about children such as Jacob Riis, Mother Jones, and Lewis Hine, many things came to an end and children finally got the rights that they needed to protect themselves with regards to working.  And because of these activists fighting against the injustices, today’s children do not have to suffer the way children suffered decades ago. 

       There were many injustices that children had face decades ago. Children were working at dangerous factories with very bad working conditions. They worked all day long with not even a break or time to eat lunch which lead to the problem that they weren't getting the education that they needed in order to improve their lives.  They were getting paid very little and worked extremely hard. Many families supported children working because back then there was a lot of poverty and families needed every cent they could get to provide for the family. But in 1886 there came a man named Jacob Riis who visited the factories to take photographs and write about the harmful conditions and poverty children had to suffer and face daily. These photographs and articles exposed how harmful working conditions were for such young children. His intent was to improve the lives of children by establishing laws that would protect their rights.

Don’t think children didn’t resist this bad treatment towards them. They used many methods of resistance. They went on strike and decided they wouldn’t continue to work until their demands were met. An activist by the name of Mother Jones acknowledged the point that the children were trying to get across and made a decision to help them. She gave the best effort she possibly could. Mother Jones walked with 16 thousand children from Philadelphia to New York. Although this walk took 22 days and they were not successful in speaking with President Roosevelt about their, they were able to bring their suffering to his attention. This method was a success because President Roosevelt could deny the fact that he knew children were suffering.

But that wasn’t the only protest method used to get the attention and rights children needed . In 1899 newsies stopped selling newspapers, because the price was raised which meant they had to work even harder to make a profit at the end of the day. Not only that, newsies had to work even harder but the pay was not worth working so hard . Newsies destroyed newspapers so that newspaper companies wouldn’t make any money at all. And it wasn't long after that newspaper owners agreed to lower the prices and give the newsies back their jobs. This method of resistance got attention and the newsies were successful because they stood together and realized there was power in numbers.

As you can see the Child Labor Movement began to bring about change. All their hard work turned out to be successful because in 1938 , Congress passes the Fair Labor Standards Act. This act affected most private and public employments.  It made it mandatory to pay workers at least the minimum wage. It also prohibited the employment of children under age 16 to work during school hours. The Fair Labor Standards Act also restricted the hours that children under age 16 could work. But most importantly it made the education of children an important priority. Before Congress passed this act, it seemed as though no one cared about children’s rights. Now children would have a fighting chance.

This movement was important to study because it made me realize how lucky and grateful the students' of today are. Children of today, we don’t have to work, we are blessed with the opportunity of education everyday and we don’t have to worry about being forced to work because we have children rights. I feel that we should be very thankful for what they did back then, if it weren’t for them then we would probably still have no rights and still have to work long days in dangerous working conditions.