Children Civil Rights Movement

Can you imagine working 60 hours in one week, without any breaks being just a young child? Well this is what children went through during the 1870’s through 1938.  These were the years that the children’s civil rights movement was being pursued. Children went through very dangerous working conditions and sometimes they would loose different parts of their body because of these conditions and the machines that they have to work with. Mother Jones, a participant and vital person in this movement helped children’s voices to be heard. The children’s rights movement was a success because of the people that helped and the long and hard times of the children in the past.

Children were treated with no respect as if they had no rights to do anything at all. They worked in factories with highly dangerous machines 60 hours a week! No one tried to help them and show them that they had rights, and at that time children thought that it was there duty to help their families live even though with children working it was still hard to make ends meet. Parents were sometimes unable to work so they depended on children; the factory owners knew this and took advantage of these children. They made them work long hours without any breaks on very dangerous machines. When the children would get hurt and injured on the company’s machines they would only pay the hospital bills but they would often leave the children without payment. This was often to avoid legal arguments and court dates.

The children that worked at factories finally found someone to help them voice their opinions, Mother Jones who was a children’s activist. She helped and guided the children. She formed a group of about 3,000 children to march from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., which took 22 days, to see President Roosevelt. Although Roosevelt refused to see the children, the children and Mother Jones got their voices heard, by the public. Newspaper articles were published and people spoke out about the crudeness of the President and the working conditions that the children worked under. Mother Jones put a lot of work and effort into helping these children so that today children can have more rights and the education and freedom they deserved.

An achievement that the children made and Mother Jones contributed to was the influence on public opinions. The public felt that it was about time that the children were recognized and seen as people and equals. People that ran factories seemed to have thought that children were some sort of slaves that didn’t deserve breaks and equal pay and the same safety as others. With the publics opinion behind the children it made it easier for their movement to be recognized and there voices to be heard. This helped in the future and is probably one of the reasons why the Supreme Court finally agreed with Congress and the public’s opinion and ended child labor; they prohibited and put limits on jobs. The Supreme Court enforced a law saying that no child can work at any full time job, except on a farm, if he or she is under the age of fourteen years old. Adolescents must go to school until they turn 16 and to work at dangerous jobs, like mining, adolescents must be eighteen.

The Children’s Civil Rights movement is significant to history because it gave children the rights that they have today. With out the bravery of these young children and activists of the time children would have probably been still working in hazardous working conditions and would be un-educated. No one believed children should have neither rights nor an education, children were not important in society especially those of the lower classes and those that lived in poverty. Just imagine how life would be during those times; you have no rights, and you were a minority in society. Imagine how hard that was struggling to support your family, I thank god that these kids had the courage to do this.