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The Gilded Age Child Labor in America. Child Labor: the Lucky Ones. Child labor was a national disgrace during the Gilded Age. The lucky ones swept the trash and filth from city streets or stood for hours on street corners hawking newspapers. Child Labor: the Less Fortunate.
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Child Labor: the Lucky Ones • Child labor was a national disgrace during the Gilded Age. The lucky ones swept the trash and filth from city streets or stood for hours on street corners hawking newspapers.
Child Labor: the Less Fortunate • The less fortunate coughed constantly through 10-hour shifts in dark, damp coal mines or sweated to the point of dehydration while tending fiery glass-factory furnaces.
A Matter of Survival • By and large, these child laborers were the sons and daughters of poor parents or recent immigrants who depended on their children's meager wages to survive. But they were also the offspring of the rapid, unchecked industrialization that characterized large American cities as early as the 1850s.
1870: 750,000 Child Laborers • In 1870, the first U.S. census to report child labor numbers counted 750,000 workers under the age of 15, not including children who worked for their families in businesses or on farms.
1911: 2 Million Child Laborers • By 1911, more than two million American children under the age of 16 were working - many of them 12 hours or more, six days a week. Often they toiled in unhealthful and hazardous conditions; always for minuscule wages.
Photographer Lewis W. Hine • But until the documentary photographs of Lewis Wikes Hine appeared in popular and progressive publications in the teens, the public turned a blind eye to the pervasive and cruel exploitation of children in the work place.
National Child Labor Committee • Hine was hired by the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC), a social welfare organization • Founded in 1904, to document the working conditions of children who worked for pennies in fields, factories, textile mills, sweatshops, coal mines, canneries and on city streets.
General view of spinning room, Cornell Mill, Fall River, Mass., 01/11/1912
Bibb Mill No. 1, Macon, Ga. Many youngsters here. Some boys and girls were so small they had to climb up on to the spinning frame to mend broken threads and to put back the empty bobbins., 01/19/1909
View of the Ewen Breaker of the Pa. Coal Co. The dust was so dense at times as to obscure the view. This dust penetrated the utmost recesses of the boy's lungs. A kind of slave-driver sometimes stands over the boys, prodding or kicking them into obedience. S. Pittston, Pa., 01/10/1911
Boys in packing room, Brown Mfg. Co. Evansville, Ind., 10/1908
Day scene. Wheaton Glass Works. Boy is Howard Lee. His mother showed me the family record in Bible which gave birth July 15, 1894. 15 years old now, but has been in glass works two years and some nights. Started at 13 years old. Millville, N.J., 11/1909
Camille Carmo, Justine, 7 and 9 years old. The older one picks about 4 pails a day. Youngest was picking also. Rochester, Mass., 09/13/1911
Photo of boys working in Arcade Bowling Alley. Photo taken late at night. The boys work until midnight and later. Trenton, N.J., 12/20/1909
Young boy working for Hickok Lumber Co. Burlington, Vt., 09/02/1910
State Laws in 1904 • Out of 45 states: -17 set a minimum age of 14 for factory work -5 prohibited children from night factory work -2 limited child factory workers to 8 hour days
In Defense of Child Labor “I believe there are just as many children spoiled by indulgence as there are by overwork” –Daniel A Tompk Carolina Mill Owner “There is such a thing as too much education for working people sometimes” – Charles Harding Merchants Woolen Co.
Arguments Against Child Labor • They argued that the rigors of child labor weakened the future work force; and that at its worst, child labor caused death. They reasoned that children who were working 10-hour days were unfairly denied the universal education promised them by the state.
U.S Child Labor Law • Minimum Age: 14 years 18 years for hazardous work • Max Hours: 18/week during school • 40/week during vacation • Reasonable Hours: 7am-7pm during school 7am-9pm during cacation
Opponents of Child Labor Regulations Argue • Unavoidable stage of development • Necessary for survival • Essential for regional competition
Child Labor Still Exists • Child labor still exists in agriculture, especially among migrant families; and U.S. companies who buy products made by child laborers abroad are often the targets of protest.
The Good Old Days . . . • "The mill is close to the golf course, so on a nice day we can look out the window and watch the men at play." • Glass factory: "...boys traveled a distance of nearly 22 miles in an 8-hour shift at a constant slow run to and from ovens... average pay of 72 cents per 8-hour shift...." • Silk Mills: "...girl not 9 years old... cleaned bobbins for 3 cents an hour... must stand at their work... 12-hour shifts... by night... unceasingly... watching the threads... before... scores of revolving spindles... some of them making 25,000 revolutions per minute...." • Garment Factory: "...to reach their quota, girls had to put in an 84-hour week at a wage averaging 5 cents an hour...“ • Soap-Packing Plants: "...girls were exposed to caustic soda that turned their nails yellow and ate away at their fingers..."
. . . They Were Terrible! • Flower-Making Workshops: "...arsenic, liberally applied to produce vivid colors, wrecked the appearance and health... with sores, swelling of the limbs, nausea... complete debility..." • Tobacco Stripping: "In their homes, ... women and children... endure the most sickening exhalations as they stripped the leaves... tobacco (dust) is everywhere... they sleep in it... (it) seasons their food and befouls the water they drink..." • Cannery: "...children as young as six employed as headers and cleaners (of shrimp and fish)... stand for shifts of 12 hours and longer in open sheds... hands immersed in cold water..."
