The Demise of Child Labor?

From Useful to Useless

Efforts to ban child labor have often been more altruistic than effective, in part because

our society’s view of child labor is more ambiguous than we think, and in part

because of underlying economic causes.

What comes to mind when I say “child labor”?

THE CHILDHOOD OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS AND HARRIET JACOBS

Campaigning against Child Labor

Children had always worked. Why the concern now?

Why did child labor persist?

Banning Child Labor

• 1904, National Child Labor Committee• 1912, Children’s Bureau• Keating Owen Act of 1916• Hammer v. Dagenhart, 1918• Constitutional Amendment, 1924, failed• Fair Labor Standards Act, 1938

Democratic Party Platform of 1892

“We are in favor of the enactment by the States of laws for abolishing the notorious sweating system, for abolishing contract convict labor, and for prohibiting the employment in factories of children under 15 years of age.”

Child Labor Amendment, 1924

• Section 1. The Congress shall have power to limit, regulate, and prohibit the labor of persons under eighteen years of age.

• Section 2. The power of the several States is unimpaired by this article except that the operation of State laws shall be suspended to the extent necessary to give effect to legislation enacted by the Congress.

Fair Labor Standards Act, 1938“Oppressive child labor” means a condition of employment under which

(1) any employee under the age of sixteen years is employed by an employer (other than a parent or a person standing in place of a parent employing his own child or a child in his custody under the age of sixteen years in an occupation other than manufacturing or mining or an occupation found by the Secretary of Labor to be particularly hazardous for the employment of children between the ages of sixteen and eighteen years or detrimental to their health or well-being) in any occupation, or

(2) any employee between the ages of sixteen and eighteen years is employed by an employer in any occupation which the Secretary of Labor shall find and by order declare to be particularly hazardous for the employment of children between such ages or detrimental to their health or well-being; but oppressive child labor shall not be deemed to exist by virtue of the employment in any occupation of any person with respect to whom the employer shall have on file an unexpired certificate issued and held pursuant to regulations of the Secretary of Labor certifying that such person is above the oppressive child-labor age. The Secretary of Labor shall provide by regulation or by order that the employment of employees between the ages of fourteen and sixteen years in occupations other than manufacturing and mining shall not be deemed to constitute oppressive child labor if and to the extent that the Secretary of Labor determines that such employment is confined to periods which will not interfere with their schooling and to conditions which will not interfere with their health and well-being.

J. Gresham Machen on the Child Labor Amendment, 1933

That amendment masquerades under the cloak of humanitarianism; it is supposed to be intended to prevent sweat-shop conditions or the like. As a matter of fact, it is just about as heartless a piece of proposed legislation as could possibly be conceived. Many persons who glibly favor this amendment seem never to have read it for themselves. They have a vague notion that it merely gives power to regulate the gainful employment of children. Not at all. The word "labor" was expressly insisted on in the wording of the amendment as over against the word "employment". The amendment gives power to Congress to enter right into your home and regulate or control or prevent altogether the helpful work of your children without which there can be no normal development of human character and no ordinary possibility of true happiness for mankind.But someone will say, Congress will never in the world be so foolish as that; the amendment does give Congress that power, but the power will never be exercised. Now, my friends, I will just say this: when I listen to an argument like that, I sometimes wonder whether the person who advances it can possibly be convinced by it himself. If these stupendous powers are never to be exercised, why should they be granted? The zeal for the granting of them, the refusal of the framers of the amendment to word the amendment in any reasonably guarded way, show plainly that the powers are intended to be exercised; and certainly they will be exercised, whatever the intention of the framers of the amendment may be. I will tell you exactly what will happen if this amendment is adopted by the states. Congress will pass legislation which, in accordance with the plain meaning of the language, will be quite unenforceable. The exact degree of enforcement will be left to Washington bureaus, and the individual family will be left to the arbitrary decision of officials. It would be difficult to imagine anything more hostile to the decency of family life and to all the traditions of our people. If there ever was a measure that looked as though it were made in Russia, it is this falsely so-called "child-labor amendment" to the Constitution of the United States. In reality, it can hardly be called an amendment to the Constitution. Rather is it the complete destruction of the Constitution; for if human life in its formative period -- up to eighteen years in the life of every youth -- is to be given to Federal bureaucrats, we do not see what else of very great value can remain. The old principles of individual liberty and local self-government will simply have been wiped out.

The Agricultural Exception

“Everybody is against [child labor but] work on farms . . . is not held to be child labor. The presumption that everything is well with the child in agriculture runs so strong that any inquiry . . . is held by some not only useless but almost improper.” National Child Labor Committee, 1924

“ . . . the attitude of a large part of the public is not opposed to the employment of children in agriculture . . . ” White House Conference on Child health and Protection, 1932

Child Labor & Children’s Agency

Child labor is often a discussion held by adults about what children should and

should not do. What happens when children join that conversation?

The Children’s Crusade, 1903

Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1912

Reuben Dagenhart, at age 20

“Look at me! A hundred and five pounds, a grown man and no education. I may be mistaken, but I think the years I’ve put in the cotton mills have stunted my growth. They kept me from getting my schooling. I had to stop school after the third grade and now I need an education I didn’t get. It would have been a good thing for all the kids in this state if that law they passed had been kept.”

Allentown, Pennsylvania, 1933

Immigrant Child Labor

Immigrants have always wanted a better life for their children. The problem has been

figuring out how to obtain it when they have to put their children to work to survive.

“He would not even hear of letting the children go to work---there were schools here in America for children, Jurgis had heard, to which they could go for nothing. . . . [F]or the present his mind was made up that the children of Teta Elzbieta should have as fair a chance as any other children. The oldest of them, little Stanislovas, was but thirteen, and small for his age at that; and while the oldest son of Szedvilas was only twelve, and had worked for over a year at Jones’s, Jurgis would have it that Stanislovas should learn to speak English, and grow up to be a skilled man.”

Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, 1906

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYYAwSYyRy4

Child Labor Today

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYIZy3bHDZs

Child Actors and Reality TV

A form of child exploitation?

The Dionne Quintuplets, 1934

Who are our society’s current Dionne quintuplets?

Child Labor & Children’s Rights

• Why do parents have their children do chores? Why do parents give their children allowances?

• What are the results of removing children from economic production and the ability to earn money?

“You say to somebody, you shouldn't go to work before you're what, 14, 16 years of age, fine. You're totally poor. You're in a school that is failing with a teacher that is failing. I've tried for years to have a very simple model. Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they'd begin the process of rising.”

Newt Gingrich

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at7IEAVvZAE