“Better to starve working than to starve fighting”

Did you know that children didn’t always have the rights they have now? Not even something as simple as going to school on a regular basis…

Back in the 1870s, children had to work in factories under harsh, dangerous conditions. Mostly because they ether had to help support their families, or factory owners helped their families forge working papers. In these industries, Children as young as 7 were working long hours (about 60 hours a week) with very little pay. Can you imagine working in a mine or factory without the simplest of needs such as shoes? What about having the risk of losing a arm or finger due to these unsafe machines that children really shouldn’t be working themselves.

Some people like Mother Jones, Lewis Hines, and Jacob Riis helped to protest against these exploited children and worked to stop this child labor from continuing. I899, Mother jones led a march with 23,00 children from Philadelphia to new york to try and see president Roosevelt. The walk took about 22 days and even when they did reach the president, he refused to see them. The children had no choice but to return to a 60 hour work week.

Jacob Riis and Lewis Hines took pictures of these children in factories, mills, and industries to show to the public what was really going on in them. Another protest that went on was about the newsies. Newsies were children on the street selling newspapers for about 50 cents per paper. Once the owners of the newspaper businesses raised the price up to 60 cent the newsies went on strike.

The leader of this strike was kid blink. Once the owners found out about the strike, the hired new newsies. As a response, the strikers burned down the newspapers so no one could buy them. After 2 week of striking the owners agreed to lower the prices and the old newsies got their jobs back. Because of this they learned that there was power in numbers.

Those weren’t the only things to children in terms of exploiting them and using them for cheap labor. Most Americans still wanted children to go to school. But factory owners wanted them to continue working. It was the only way at the time to acquire cheap labor. And because of the fact that the children were either poorly educated or not educated at all, they couldn’t do much about their low wages.

In 1912, mill owners sped up the machines and lowered the wages. Because of this, one little girl who got her hair caught in a machine and spent 7 months in hospital. The workers went on strike.  People in other cities hear about this and go on strike as well. President Taft asked the little girl to tell the public what happened to her at the mill. Mill owners then and offered a shorter workweek due to bad press.

Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards act in 1916 which made a minimum wage for children and they got to work for fewer hours a week, Congress also passed the Keating Owens act in 1938 which was signed into law by president Roosevelt. The supreme law rejected this law because mill owners were complaining about the low wages and shorter workweek. They said that only states could make child labor laws. Eventually though, the Supreme Court agrees to pass the law and now children are protected against child labor and exploitation. I believe this was an important movement to study because this was an important event in American history and changed the economy for a long time. Children were being abused and didn’t deserve to work at such a young age in harsh conditions, especially without a proper education.