Grace Abbott's Argument Against Child Labor

Child Labor Laws

“Child labor and poverty are inevitably bound together and if you continue to use the labor of children as the treatment for the social disease of poverty, you will have both poverty and child labor to the end of time.” This quote by Grace Abbott explains why we need to stand up against child labor. Although many people think that children these days need to work more and have life handed to them, this was not always the case. Children during the industrial revolution were being forced to work long hours in terrible conditions with little to no pay. They were discriminated against in many ways, held protests, and created many opportunities for future generations. Children were discriminated against in many ways. For example, a child’s day was 12-19 hours long whereas the average adult’s day was only 10 hours. Not only did they have to work long, hard days but children as young as 6 years old were expected to work. If these

In the south, a three fold rise in the number of children laborers during the 1890’s, caused the public to become very opinionated about child labor laws. Meanwhile in the north, the National Child Labor Committee started forming in 1904. The Fair Labor Standards Act was finally passed in 1938 and it prohibited employing children under 16 to industries engaging in interstate commerce. Although you would think that many people would feel it was unsafe for children to work under these conditions, many protesters actually got better results when they said that children’s work hours should be shortened so they can go to school rather than because it was too dangerous and strenuous for the children. Even while the civil war was raging many people were still protesting for children’s work rights. Just like the civil war, these protesters would impact many generations to