The document discusses the history of efforts to ban child labor in the United States from the late 19th century to the 1930s. It provides context on why child labor was prevalent and perspectives on banning it. It notes that children had always worked historically. The first organized efforts against child labor began in the early 1900s with groups like the National Child Labor Committee. Key laws and acts that were passed include the Keating Owen Act of 1916, the failed Child Labor Amendment of 1924, and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 which placed limitations on child labor. The document discusses debates around certain exemptions and differing views on children's work and rights.

1. The Demise of Child Labor?
From Useful to Useless

2. Efforts to ban child labor have often been
more altruistic than effective, in part because
our society’s view of child labor is more
ambiguous than we think, and in part
because of underlying economic causes.

3. What comes to mind when I say
“child labor”?

4. THE CHILDHOOD OF FREDERICK
DOUGLASS AND HARRIET JACOBS

6. Campaigning against Child Labor

12. Children had always worked.
Why the concern now?

35. Why did child labor persist?

39. Banning Child Labor
• 1904, National Child Labor Committee
• 1912, Children’s Bureau
• Keating Owen Act of 1916
• Hammer v. Dagenhart, 1918
• Constitutional Amendment, 1924, failed
• Fair Labor Standards Act, 1938

40. Democratic Party Platform of 1892
“We are in favor of the enactment by the States of laws for
abolishing the notorious sweating system, for abolishing contract
convict labor, and for prohibiting the employment in factories of
children under 15 years of age.”

41. Child Labor Amendment, 1924
• Section 1. The Congress shall have power to limit, regulate,
and prohibit the labor of persons under eighteen years of age.
• Section 2. The power of the several States is unimpaired by
this article except that the operation of State laws shall be
suspended to the extent necessary to give effect to legislation
enacted by the Congress.

42. Fair Labor Standards Act, 1938
“Oppressive child labor” means a condition of employment under which
(1) any employee under the age of sixteen years is employed by an employer (other
than a parent or a person standing in place of a parent employing his own child or a
child in his custody under the age of sixteen years in an occupation other than
manufacturing or mining or an occupation found by the Secretary of Labor to be
particularly hazardous for the employment of children between the ages of sixteen
and eighteen years or detrimental to their health or well-being) in any occupation, or
(2) any employee between the ages of sixteen and eighteen years is employed by an
employer in any occupation which the Secretary of Labor shall find and by order
declare to be particularly hazardous for the employment of children between such
ages or detrimental to their health or well-being; but oppressive child labor shall not
be deemed to exist by virtue of the employment in any occupation of any person
with respect to whom the employer shall have on file an unexpired certificate issued
and held pursuant to regulations of the Secretary of Labor certifying that such
person is above the oppressive child-labor age. The Secretary of Labor shall
provide by regulation or by order that the employment of employees between the
ages of fourteen and sixteen years in occupations other than manufacturing and
mining shall not be deemed to constitute oppressive child labor if and to the extent
that the Secretary of Labor determines that such employment is confined to periods
which will not interfere with their schooling and to conditions which will not interfere
with their health and well-being.

43. J. Gresham Machen
on the Child Labor Amendment, 1933
That amendment masquerades under the cloak of humanitarianism; it is supposed to be intended to
prevent sweat-shop conditions or the like. As a matter of fact, it is just about as heartless a piece of
proposed legislation as could possibly be conceived. Many persons who glibly favor this amendment seem
never to have read it for themselves. They have a vague notion that it merely gives power to regulate the
gainful employment of children. Not at all. The word "labor" was expressly insisted on in the wording of the
amendment as over against the word "employment". The amendment gives power to Congress to enter
right into your home and regulate or control or prevent altogether the helpful work of your children without
which there can be no normal development of human character and no ordinary possibility of true
happiness for mankind. But someone will say, Congress will never in the world be so foolish as that; the
amendment does give Congress that power, but the power will never be exercised. Now, my friends, I will
just say this: when I listen to an argument like that, I sometimes wonder whether the person who advances
it can possibly be convinced by it himself. If these stupendous powers are never to be exercised, why should
they be granted? The zeal for the granting of them, the refusal of the framers of the amendment to word
the amendment in any reasonably guarded way, show plainly that the powers are intended to be exercised;
and certainly they will be exercised, whatever the intention of the framers of the amendment may be. I will
tell you exactly what will happen if this amendment is adopted by the states. Congress will pass legislation
which, in accordance with the plain meaning of the language, will be quite unenforceable. The exact degree
of enforcement will be left to Washington bureaus, and the individual family will be left to the arbitrary
decision of officials. It would be difficult to imagine anything more hostile to the decency of family life and
to all the traditions of our people. If there ever was a measure that looked as though it were made in Russia,
it is this falsely so-called "child-labor amendment" to the Constitution of the United States. In reality, it can
hardly be called an amendment to the Constitution. Rather is it the complete destruction of the
Constitution; for if human life in its formative period -- up to eighteen years in the life of every youth -- is to
be given to Federal bureaucrats, we do not see what else of very great value can remain. The old principles
of individual liberty and local self-government will simply have been wiped out.

44. The Agricultural Exception
“Everybody is against [child labor but] work on farms . . . is not
held to be child labor. The presumption that everything is well
with the child in agriculture runs so strong that any inquiry . . . is
held by some not only useless but almost improper.” National
Child Labor Committee, 1924
“ . . . the attitude of a large part of the public is not opposed to
the employment of children in agriculture . . . ” White House
Conference on Child health and Protection, 1932

45. Child Labor & Children’s Agency
Child labor is often a discussion held by
adults about what children should and
should not do. What happens when
children join that conversation?

46. The Children’s Crusade, 1903

47. Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1912

49. Reuben Dagenhart, at age 20
“Look at me! A hundred and five pounds, a grown man and
no education. I may be mistaken, but I think the years I’ve
put in the cotton mills have stunted my growth. They kept
me from getting my schooling. I had to stop school after the
third grade and now I need an education I didn’t get. It
would have been a good thing for all the kids in this state if
that law they passed had been kept.”

50. Allentown, Pennsylvania, 1933

51. Immigrant Child Labor
Immigrants have always wanted a better life
for their children. The problem has been
figuring out how to obtain it when they have
to put their children to work to survive.

52. “He would not even hear of letting the children go to
work---there were schools here in America for children,
Jurgis had heard, to which they could go for nothing. . . .
[F]or the present his mind was made up that the children
of Teta Elzbieta should have as fair a chance as any other
children. The oldest of them, little Stanislovas, was but
thirteen, and small for his age at that; and while the
oldest son of Szedvilas was only twelve, and had worked
for over a year at Jones’s, Jurgis would have it that
Stanislovas should learn to speak English, and grow up to
be a skilled man.”
Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, 1906

53. • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYYAwSY
yRy4

54. Child Labor Today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
JYIZy3bHDZs

55. Child Actors and Reality TV
A form of child exploitation?

56. The Dionne Quintuplets, 1934

71. Who are our society’s current
Dionne quintuplets?

72. Child Labor & Children’s Rights
• Why do parents have their children do
chores? Why do parents give their children
allowances?
• What are the results of removing children
from economic production and the ability to
earn money?

73. “You say to somebody, you shouldn't go to work before you're what, 14, 16
years of age, fine. You're totally poor. You're in a school that is failing with a
teacher that is failing. I've tried for years to have a very simple model. Most of
these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master
janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would
actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools,
they'd begin the process of rising.”
Newt Gingrich
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at7IEAVvZAE