Primary Source Set Child Labor
-
Two girls protest against child labor in a labor parade, 1909. Their banners read "ABOLISH CHILD SLAVERY" in Yiddish and English -
Child laborers in an Indiana glass factory at midnight, 1908 -
Newspaper article on a National Child Labor Committee traveling exhibit, 1911 -
Anti-child-labor cartoon, from around 1912 -
Child selling the Washington Daily News, 1921 -
"I began sellling newspapers early," interview with former newsie Sol Stetin -
"The Golf Links" by Sarah N. Cleghorn -
"Forbid an Atrocity Like Child Labor, Says Jane Addams," 1914 -
Interview with Mae Bongalis, former child coal miner -
Children and adults working in a meatpacking house, around 1893 -
National Child Labor Committee exhibit at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915 -
"I had a shoe shine box on one shoulder, newspapers under one arm and shopping bags in the other," interview with Howard Jones -
Norma Lawrence, a ten-year-old cotton picker, 1916 -
"Wage Tragedy Told by Child," 1919 -
Labor organizer Mother Jones leads a march to protest the conditions of children working in textile mills, 1903 -
A woman labeled "The state" leading children away from a factory and toward school. Cartoon by Carl Meyer, around 1914 -
"Declaration of Dependence by the Children of America in Mines and Factories and Workshops Assembled," around 1913 -
News article on the new federal Fair Labor Standards Act, 1938
The resources in this primary source set are intended for classroom use. If your use will be beyond a single classroom, please review the copyright and fair use guidelines.
Teacher’s Guide
To help your students analyze these primary sources, get a graphic organizer and guides: Analysis Tool and Guides
Background
In the early 20th century, a national reform movement took aim at child labor in the United States, igniting debates over the rights and responsibilities that parents, government institutions, and the community as a whole had to the nation’s children.
For much of the early history of the U.S., many children worked, often contributing to family farms or family businesses. After the Civil War, however, as industrialization and urbanization transformed U.S. society, opportunities for children to work for wages—in factories, mills, or on the streets selling newspapers—increased dramatically. According to the 1900 census, between 1.5 and 2 million children were engaged in wage labor: 1 out of every 6 children. Because of increased mechanization, many workplaces were dangerous environments that brought child workers into contact with heavy machinery and industrial chemicals.
More than half of the nation’s state governments had child labor laws on the books, but those laws weren’t always enforced. At the same time, compulsory schooling for children was on the rise, and the right of children to an education was more and more widely accepted.
In 1904, the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC) was founded with a mission of "promoting the rights, awareness, dignity, well-being and education of children and youth as they relate to work and working.” Child labor reform organizations like the NCLC waged their much of their battle in the public sphere, using all the tools of the growing mass media to spread their message, including newspaper articles, cartoons, and multimedia exhibit panels that the reformers took to conferences, city streets, and international expositions. Many of the NCLC’s campaigns were fueled by the work of their staff photographer, Lewis Hine, who spent years infiltrating coal mines, textile mills, lumberyards, fish canneries, and substandard factory schools to document the conditions that children endured.
The fight for lasting federal action took decades. Federal laws passed in 1916 and 1919 were struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. A constitutional amendment passed in 1924 but was not ratified by the states. In 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act became the first effective piece of federal legislation to regulate child labor, setting minimum ages and maximum hours of employment for children.
Suggestions for Teachers
- Assign students to identify and list the persuasive techniques used in one or more of the items in the set. Students might then pair up and examine items that use the same persuasive technique, but in different formats, such as a poem and a cartoon, or a photograph and a newspaper article. Ask them to explain which they find more persuasive.
- Allow time for students to examine a range of primary sources from the set. Then ask them to identify examples of activism in the items. What strategies do they notice being used to bring about change?
- Support students in looking closely at the photographs of working children. Allow time for them to record their response to the photos. Then, compare the impact of individual images with the effect in the exhibit panels. As a possible extension, ask: If the children in the photos had a chance to see these panels on display, how do you think they would have felt about how their images were being used?
- Direct students to examine all or a selection of the items. Which items reflect an adult’s perspective on child labor? Which items reflect a child’s perspective and experience? How do the arguments differ? Which do students find most compelling?