Child labor reform during the Progressive Era

Around the world and in the U.S., growing gaps between rich and poor in recent decades have forced millions of young children out of school and into work. The International Labor Organization estimates that 246 million children between the ages of 5 and 17 currently work under conditions that are considered illegal, hazardous, or extremely exploitative. Most child labor happens in Asia with 60%, 23% in Africa and 8% in South America, and nearly 70% of child labor occurs in agriculture.

Child labor has been a growing problem all over the world; in many countries with higher standards of living have done something to fix the problem of extorting children for labor. In the late 1800’s and 1900’s during the progressive era child labor was one of the main things the progressives wanted to change.

Growing concerns for the poor gave way to the growing interest of the working class. This led to one the most persistent causes of the progressive era child reform. In 1890 a census revealed that one million children between the ages of 10 and 15 worked, by 1910 that number had doubled to two million. The conditions in which these children were less than ideal, physical ailments were common. Industrialization didn’t create child labor but it did cause the need for the child labor reform. The replacement of skilled artisans with machines and the growing of textile mills and factories made child labor easy and profitable for business owners. Many business owners hired children because they are easy to train, willing to work for a lower wage most adults won’t work for, and because the children are not as likely to strike.

In 1904 the National Child Labor Committee was formed by socially concerned citizens and politicians, and was charted by Congress in 1907 throughout the years the NCLC has passed laws to help protect the well being of children. They have passed laws that make states have minimum age requirements and a minimum wage for minor workers. These laws were met with strong opposition from parents with children working because most families were so poor that everyone in the family worked and losing the income of one person could be detrimental to the families well being. Mill owners and even workers weren’t accepting of reformers they believed that working at a young age taught the children discipline. Another law passed was the law stating that all children had to attend school during their elementary years. This law was upheld by attendance officers who kept the children in school and out of work.

With all these laws in place the number of child labor has considerably dropped. But in other countries still today there are children working in mines, mills, warehouses and in agricultural environments. The NCLC is trying to pass laws so theses children in other countries can have the same rights as children in America. But some believe that these laws can be inadvertently harmful to the children, because if a child looses their job at a textile plant because of the law they will have to look for a job that may be more harmful to them.

Through all of these hardships the main thing we can learn from this is that even child labor is effective it is wrong and causes many problems in the rights of the children. Because working at that young of an age is dangerous for the children. That’s why there are minimum age requirements to work.