Have you ever worked at the age of 6? Go back in time to 1870 and ask one of those children, the answer would most probably say yes. The reason for that was America’s industrialization, which was when America started to build many factorys and used farms less. Because there were so many factories the factory owners needed many workers. They saw that if they hired children they would not have to pay them a lot and can make them work in any condition like sifting coal or working large machines. People who helped eliminate this were congress, Jacob Riis, Theodore Roosevelt, Mother Jones, and president Hoover. After many attempts to convince the supreme court to ban child labor in 1938 the supreme court finally passed the fair labor standards act. This act prevented children to work full time jobs unless farming.

         Some injustices they faced were low pay, horrible working conditions. The working conditions were so horrible that some of them lost hands and fingers. The pay was bad too they were paid less than adults and put to work harder. In 1886 a photographer named Jacob Riis went to  immigrant neighborhoods to show people what conditions they were living in. when congress saw this they passed the factory act. It was supposed prevent children under 13 from working in factories. They really did not care about this much because they only assighned two inspectors to check factories for childrens working papers.

         Some methods of resistance that the children had were that they went on stirkes. One strike was the Lawrence strike. 23,000 workers went on strike because camellia teoli was injured in the Lawrence mill. She spent 7 months in the hospital. Because of this factory owners sped up the machines and lowered wages, the strike though made the owners change the working conditions and give higher wages. One person that took this and made it a primary source was Jacob Riis. He took pictures and wrote about  the conditions that they worked in this was another factor that made factory owners better their working conditions.

         After all the protests and hard work that children and other people had to go through to get the children there correct rights they finally got them in 1938 in the fair labor standards act, it said that no child under the age of 14 could not work full time jobs unless it was farming. Only children 18 and older can work with dangourus machinery like caol minig or in mills.

         I think this movement was important to study because it showed what people went through for us to be here and to have what we have now. This also makes me feel good because I can go to school without worrying about my fingers being cut of by some machine in a factory. This concludes my essay on child labor.