The Progressive Era

The Progressive Era was an era of reform.  Muck-racking journalists to the corruption in city governments, brutal business practices employed by businessmen, and most importantly the exploitation of child labor.  Progressives enforced minimum wage laws for women workers, instituted industrial accident insurance, restricted child labor, and improved factory regulation.  The 1900 census reported that nearly 2 million children were working, making up six percent of America’s labor force.  Progressive reformers became alarmed at the growing number of child workers. They formed organizations in the early 1900s devoted to the healthy development of children.  Lewis Hines was one of the main contributors, he was hired by The National Child Labor Committee to photograph these children’s in their harsh work conditions. Hines was a school teacher who believed a picture could tell a powerful story, with that belief and his strong feeling against the abuse of children as workers he set out to be an investigative photographer. Hines also believed if the people could see the abuse and injustice of child labor then they would try to enforced a law against this cruelty. Grace Abbot was another progressive who promoted the end of abuse of child workers. She joined the department of labor and was assigned to the children's bureau. She soon started working on a law the would implement the first child labor federal law the would restrict child labor. Abbot also headed, in 1921, the children's bureau and led the the campaign for a constitutional  amendment limiting child labor. Although this amendment was never added it set a precedent for the new deal legislation regulating the labor of children under the age of 16. These people made a huge contribution to child labor. Without the progressive movement and everyone who contributed to it i am sure that child abuse in the working area would have gone on for much longer. We owe all of these people our thanks for what they did for our society in the 1800’s.


http://icue.nbcunifiles.com/icue/files/icue/site/pdf/6225.pdf

http://www.eiu.edu/eiutps/childhood.php

http://www.kentlaw.edu/ilhs/hine.htm

Everyday lives for the children

There is no doubt that the everyday lives of these children were very difficult. From dusk till dawn these kids worked their buts off. They usually spent most of their day working in the factories, mills, mines, or farms. When they got home they were greeted with less than exciting circumstances. Most of these children lived in poor conditions; their homes were dirty, they had no source of ventilation, and they usually lived with 12 other people in a extremely small room.As you can imagine these homes had to heat nor windows, therefore on hot summer days the heat would be unbearable and on cold lonely nights it would be chilling cold. To give me an idea of how these children lived i skimmed the book “how the other half lives” by Jacob Riis. I can the pictures that i saw in the book and the little bit that i read saddened me. Just to know that these children woke up and couldn't even take a shower on most days and then went to slave it in a job to come back home to miserable conditions gave me a feel of melancholy . These following pictures show the disgusting neighborhoods and homes these kids lived in:

FARM WORK AND INDUSTRIAL WORK: DIFFERENT OR THE SAME?

It is no secret that during the industrial revolution child labor wasn't out of the ordinary and was with the norm. Children who lived in the city worked in factories while children who worked in rural areas worked on farms. While the work they were doing were different, the amount was the same.

Farm work consisted of working long hours in the blazing sun using dangerous equipment to cut crops, hulling and shucking, planting, weeding and hoeing, topping and carrying loaded containers to central points. The children worked with their parents on farms. While the parents working with the heavy loads, the children were working with the smaller loads. Children pay was even different on farms than in a factory. In a factory children would get payed 3 cents a week, but in farms the owner does not pay the children but in this case the head of the family depending on how much cotton based was produced in that season, or the number of cartons filled with berries in a day. This caused the parents to want to get their children working as soon as possible for long hours a day.

In factories children were subjected to long hours just like in the farms, however, unlike the children who work on farms they were working with heavy machinery. The factories owner liked having  young children because they did not have to pay them much and their little hands and fingers could get into small places of the machines. Their work varied from lighting matches and putting them in the chemical phosphorus to sewing simple clothing. Their pay was very little (3 to 6 cents a week) and was barely enough to get them something to eat. In these factories children would inhale many toxic fumes and smoke coming from the machines. They were stuck in a crowded room with no ventilation and barely any windows which led the work place to not have a clean air supply.

In my opinion they are both the same and different. They both required the same amount of time and made children work hard. However working in a factory is more dangerous than working in a farm. With so many toxins in an unventilated place and dangerous machinery its hard to imagine not one child not being harmed. Lets also remember how much these kids got payed; while the farm children were getting payed depending how much they mad per day or season, the factories children were getting payed 3-6 cents a week. We can both say that the factories children had a much more stable pay than the farm children.  

http://books.google.com/books?id=lrKec5YTVYAC&pg=PA479&lpg=PA479&dq=difference+between+working+in+agriculture+and+working+in+factory+for+children&source=bl&ots=z-ux5UsC50&sig=99z0HFIgC5X3MdcdPqRsCNbkE7I&hl=en&ei=et4bTYeEC8TflgfeqLTdCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBsQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

Conditions and Treatments

These jobs accepted children from ages three and up, work hours consisted of 10 to 14 hours with barely any breaks in between. Children's worked in mines, glass factories, textiles, agriculture,  home industries, and the few lucky children had easier jobs such as newsboys, messengers, and peddlers.  Since the children were very small, fragile, and underdeveloped they were easily injured on the job using heavy machinery.  Work conditions that were considered “okay” or healthy for adults, in reality were not for children. Children are at higher risks and injuries may have a long term effect.   The heavy machinery often lead to injuries in little fingers, arms and legs and sometimes resulted in death.  In such factories such as match factories children were employed to dip matches in a chemical called phosphorous, the phosphorous caused their teeth to rot and others died from inhaling the chemical substance. Children who worked in coal mines were employed with one of the most dangerous work conditions, the mines often consisted of two different types of employees; the trappers who were the younger children, and the coal bearers.  Employees who refered to as the trappers dealt with extremely small working spaces it was one of the easiest jobs but one of the loneliest, the coal bearers were loaded with heavy sacks of coal.  Children who were coal bearers often suffered back problem such as scoliosis and it also delayed growth development.  Often times the mines would collapse trapping the children in, there were also few safety rules in these mines.  

The treatment of children in factories was often cruel and unusual it was very neglecting.  The youngest children were often sent to be an assistant to textile workers because they were too young to work the heavy machinery.  The children were often times beat, both physically and verbally.  One common punishment for a child’s lateness was the act of tying a heavy object around the child’s neck and having the child walk around the factory all day setting an example for other children.  Could you imagine your boss beating you physically or better yet even touching you?  These conditions were terrible, and yet we take advantage of our current working conditions.  It is amazing how conditions have improved over the past hundred years.  

http://www.nettlesworth.durham.sch.uk/time/victorian/vindust.html

Introduction and background information

The years after the Civil War  were followed by industrialization, the United States emerged as an industrialized nation. Due to so many new opportunities emerging in steal manufacturing, petroleum refining, the use of railroads  and the increasing use of electrical power many factories began to need workers to run their machines. The need to become one of the world top industrial powers led the government to turn the other cheek on working conditions, especially children’s. This era of industrial growth formed a system of hierarchy in society, wealthy entrepreneurs and factory owners were on top, then came middle class families, and of course poor families, better known as the working class.  

With the belief that moving to these industrialized areas would provide work, many rural families set their sights on moving to these largely populated cities.  Unfortunately conditions for workers  in these "industrialized" areas were not as pictured, instead they discovered that these jobs consisted of long hours and little pay. To keep the family from starvation every member had to work including the children. In a way the families were foolishly led on by these owners who assured them that they would find a better place to live and make ends meet.

http://www.eiu.edu/eiutps/childhood.php

Child Labor in the United States

"Child labor is the employment of children under the age of physical maturity in jobs requiring long hours." In the late 1700's and the early 1800's child labor was introduced, during the Industrial Revolution. This period in history changed the views of many Americans, it was a transformation of people's exsistence and work efforts. Families moved from rural areas, to large cities in order to provide for the families. But it wasn't exactly just the parents working, this time it was children.  Factory owners found a new source to run their machines, children, because they were cheap and lease likely to protest against. 

One mans opinion on child labor:

“There is work that profits children, and there is work that brings profit only to employers. The object of employing children is not to train them, but to get high profits from their work.”

-Lewis Hine, 1908

Young innocent children struggled to provide for their families and themselves as well, taking away the advantage of an education.   The only children who were educated were the children who came from wealthy families, who were not a part of the struggle.  Children had always worked in the past but not in such conditions like these, they worked around the house and other small family related jobs.  Nothing compared to the factory and mining jobs, children worked in harsh conditions, which were often labeled exploitative and extremely hazardous. They worked crucial long hours for low salaries in unhealthy conditions, often times children would end up with pneumonia, bronchitis and other critical conditions. Before child labor, children were viewed as innocent, youthful, joyful and playful.  Could you imagine not having your youth and education?, its horrifying enough to even know this exsisted in history. 

"Faces of lost youth"

The picture sets a mood of depression, young girls struggling to make it at such a young age.  Their appearance resembles one of an older woman, mean while they are barely even teens.

Image source: http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/hine-adolescents.htm

http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/2004/1/04.01.08.x.html
http://www.continuetolearn.uiowa.edu/laborctr/child_labor/about/us_history.html