With the Industrial Revolution machinery took over many functions formerly performed by hand and was centralized in large factories. Children often tended these machines in ever-increasing numbers from as young as age five, especially in the textile industry. Child labor also occurred in coal-mining, where children would labor for long hours in the dark, damp mines, carrying coal on their backs up to the surface.
In the 1830's the English Parliament set up a commision to investigate the problems of child laborers. One worker in a textile mill testified that since the age of 8 he had worked from 6 A.M. to 8 P.M.,with an hour off at noon. When business was busy, however, he worked 16 straight hours, from 5 A.M. to 9 P.M. Another boy,whose parents had sold him to a mill owner, testified that the child laborers were locked up in the mill night and day. He ran away twice, and was caught and whipped by his overseer. Stories as horrible as thses are common from the the child laborers in the coal-mines.
Many British children had no parents that could support them, if they had parents at all. These children were called "pauper children," and under the English Poor Laws, local government officials were supposed to arrange for them to become apprentices, to learn a trade and be cared for. However, thousands of children were turned over to a distant mill owner, leaving no one to intercede for them. Others were indentured by their parents, sold to a mill owner for a period of years. Still others lived with their families and supplemented the family income with their hard-earned wages.
Child labor first became an issue in the U.S. in the 1850's in large Northern cities like New York, worsening with increased industrialization. The problem also worsened with the increasing immigration at the turn of the century,and with the South's late and slow industrial development.
Poor children in the large cities were sent out by parents as young as age 6 or 7 to earn their keep and contribute to the household economy. The youngest worked as scavengers, gathering salable trash- cinders, rope, metal bottles. They brought them home, sold them to junk dealers,or peddled them to neighbors. Older kids street-peddled or worked at huckstering. Several low-paying trades were reserved for children, like street-sweeping for girls, and bootblacking and newspaper selling for boys. These children who worked in the streets far away from adult supervision often fell into gambling, prostitution, or theft. Children also worked in glass factories in front of fiery furnaces, in dark textile mills, in coalfields breathing in coal dust for 10 hours at a time.
In 1870, the first time the census reported child laborers, there were 750,000 workers 15 and under, not including family farms or businesses. Rapid industrialization increased these numbers, resulting in a campaign forchild labor laws that became an important movement for over fifty years. It sprang from several sources. Crowded and unsanitary conditions in factories and factory dormitories gave rise to disease. The rigors of child labor resulted in a permanently weakened labor force, even in premature death. The lack of education that child laborers recieved also was a prime concern.
England, in 1802, passed the first child labor legislation,but it only applied to pauper apprentices and was not enforced. It was followed in 1819,1825, 1833, 1844, and 1878 Factory Acts, gradually strengthening inspection,shortening hours,and raising ages at which children could work.
In the United States, numerous organizations worked to eliminate child labor, including the National Child Labor Commitee, lauched in 1904 by social workers. Public support was mobilized by several "muckrakers," journalists exposing horrible conditions and social ills everywhere. In 1916, at the hightide of the progressive movement, President Wilson passed the Keating-Owen Act through Congress. This banned articles produced by child labor from interstate commerce. A 1918 Supreme Court ruling declared it unconstitutional. It was not until 1938, with the far-reaching Fair Labor Standards Act, did any attempt at child labor legislation succeed. This requires the employers to pay child laborers the minimum wage. It also limits the age of child laborers to 16 and over, 18 if the occupation in hazardous. Children 14 and 15 are permitted to work in certain occupations after school hours.
In the United States today, child labor remains a problem in agriculture, especially among migrant farm families. It is also an issue that comes up in protests of U.S. companies who buy products made by child laborers abroad.