Child Labor Laws
From “The Reader's Companion to American History - Child Labor”
From Vivian Combs Moon on a Rootsweb List

 
The minimal role of child labor in the United States today is one of the more remarkable changes in the social and economic life of the nation over the last two centuries. In colonial America, child labor was not a subject of controversy. It was an integral part of the agricultural and handicraft economy. Children not only worked on the family farm but were often hired out to other farmers. Boys customarily began their apprenticeship in a trade between ages ten and fourteen. Both types of child labor declined in the early nineteenth century, but factory employment provided a new opportunity for children. Ultimately, young women and adult immigrants replaced these children in the textile industry, but child labor continued in other businesses. They could be paid lower wages, were more tractable and easily managed than adults, and were very difficult for unions to organize.

The educational reformers of the mid-nineteenth century convinced many among the native-born population that primary school education was a necessity for both personal fulfillment and the advancement of the nation. This led several states to establish a minimum wage for labor and minimal requirements for school attendance. These laws had many loopholes, however, and were in place in only some states where they were laxly enforced. In addition, the influx of immigrants, beginning with the Irish in the 1840s and continuing after 1880 with groups from southern and eastern Europe, provided a new pool of child workers. Many of these immigrants came from a rural background, and they had much the same attitude toward child labor as Americans had in the eighteenth century.

The new supply of child workers was matched by a tremendous expansion of American industry in the last quarter of the nineteenth century that increased the jobs suitable for children. The two factors led to a rise in the percentage of children ten to fifteen years of age who were gainfully employed. Although the official figure of 1.75 million significantly understates the true number, it indicates that at least 18 percent of these children were employed in 1900. In southern cotton mills, 25 percent of the employees were below the age of fifteen, with half of these children below age twelve. In addition, the horrendous conditions of work for many child laborers brought the issue to public attention.

Determined efforts to regulate or eliminate child labor have been a feature of social reform in the United States since 1900. The leaders in this effort were the National Child Labor Committee, organized in 1904, and the many state child labor committees. These organizations, gradualist in philosophy and thus prepared to accept what was achievable even if not theoretically sufficient, employed flexible tactics and were able to withstand the frustration of defeats and slow progress. The committees pioneered the techniques of mass political action, including investigations by experts, the widespread use of photography to dramatize the poor conditions of children at work, pamphlets, leaflets, and mass mailings to reach the public, and sophisticated lobbying. Despite these activities, success depended heavily on the political climate in the nation as well as developments that reduced the need or desirability of child labor.

During the period from 1902 to 1915, child labor committees emphasized reform through state legislatures. Many laws restricting child labor were passed as part of the progressive reform movement of this period. But the gaps that remained, particularly in the southern states, led to a decision to work for a federal child labor law. Congress passed such laws in 1916 and 1918, but the Supreme Court declared them unconstitutional.

The opponents of child labor then sought a constitutional amendment authorizing federal child labor legislation. Congress passed such an amendment in 1924, but the conservative political climate of the 1920s, together with opposition from some church groups and farm organizations that feared a possible increase of federal power in areas related to children, prevented many states from ratifying it.

The Great Depression changed political attitudes in the United States significantly, and child labor reform benefited. Almost all of the codes developed under the National Industrial Recovery Act served to reduce child labor. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which for the first time set national minimum wage and maximum hour standards for workers in interstate commerce, also placed limitations on child labor. In effect, the employment of children under sixteen years of age was prohibited in manufacturing and mining.

This success arose not only from popular hostility to child labor, generated in no small measure by the long-term work of the child labor committees and the climate of reform in the New Deal period, but also from the desire of Americans in a period of high unemployment to open jobs held by children to adults.

Other factors also contributed in a major way to the decline of child labor. New types of machinery cut into the use of children in two ways. Many simple tasks done by children were mechanized, and semiskilled adults became necessary for the most efficient use of the equipment. In addition, jobs of all sorts increasingly required higher educational levels. The states responded by increasing the number of years of schooling required, lengthening the school year, and enforcing truancy laws more effectively. The need for education was so clear that Congress in 1949 amended the child labor law to include businesses not covered in 1938, principally commercial agriculture, transportation, communications, and public utilities.

MATTIE PYLES
As you read the articles below you see a young girl of 14, not attending school, working in a factory to help support the family. This was the fate of many young children of these times. You will also notice that Clifford Bennett was not prosecuted for the rape of  fourteen year old, Mattie Pyles.

The below articles were found in the Middletown News-Signal, Middletown, Ohio, 1890-1891.
Mattie Pyles was the daughter of David and Elizabeth Pyles, of Middletown. She was 14 years, 4 months and 6 days old at the time of her death on, September 23, 1890, at 113 Canal Street, Middletown, Ohio. At the time of her death she was employed as a factory worker. Mattie Pyles was buried September 24, 1890, at the Middletown Cemetery, Middletown, Ohio.
November 20, 1890    Middletown Signal, Middletown, Ohio

MAGGIE HUBBARD FOUND GUILTY BY THE JURY
The Jury in the case of the State of Ohio against Maggie Hubbard, charged with performing an abortion on the person of Mattie Pyles, this morning found her guilty, returning its verdict at 10 o’clock.

The case has been one of the more than casual interest.  The people of the city in whose midst a young girl not yet 15 years of age, was the victim of a depraved man and a scheming woman have watched every step in the proceedings and felt that the perpetrators of such a crime should not be permitted to escape the penalty of the law.  The girl is in her grave; her dying statement was not recognized in law, but the perpetrators of the deed had not covered up their tracks so completely as to escape condemnation.  The law has taken its course and Maggie Hubbard stands before the bar of justice, convicted of a crime that resulted in the death of Mattie Pyles.

Clifford Bennett’s trial will be the next to occupy the attention of the court.  He is said to be the cause of the girl’s ruin.  He is charged with having secured Mrs. Hubbard to perform the operation and hence since her conviction the clouds seem to be darkening around him.  It is thought that the future developments will result in some surprises.

January 2, 1891    Middletown Daily Signal, Middletown, Ohio
Ending of the Hubbard-Bennett Abortion Cases
This morning the indictment against Clifford Bennett for procuring an abortion upon Mattie Pyles was nollied.  He was jointly indicted with Maggie Hubbard for the abortion offense.

His attorney, Ben Harwitz, succeeded in keeping off the trial of his case and after the conviction of Mrs. Hubbard, Bennet gave a bond for his future appearing and was released from jail.

This morning Prosecuting Attorney Smith, with the consent of the court, entered a nolle prosequi.  This finally winds up all the cases for the commission of a terrible crime by which a young and innocent girl lost her life.

It seems strange that one of the perpetrators should languish behind the grim walls of the penitentiary while the other goes entirely free after a few weeks imprisonment in the county jail; but such is the strange result of the persecutors against these abortionists.
http://www.lectlaw.com/def2/n061.htm  definition of nolle prosequi

June1891
Court of Common Pleas, Butler County, Ohio
Mrs. Eliza Pyles, whose daughter it will be remembered was the victim of a man’s crime and a woman’s weakness and sin some time ago, has applied for divorce from David Pyles a worthless husband who has figured in the courts before in his relations with others, and from whom on the ground of infidelity, she seeks a divorce.