Child labor in the United States
In an overwhelmingly rural society, farmers discovered that children as young as six or seven could usefully handle chores assigned along gender lines.
In the cities, at a time when schools were uncommon outside New England, girls had household and child care chores while boys at about age 12 were apprenticed to craftsmen.
Colonial America had as surplus of good farmland and a shortage of workers, so criminals in England kidnapped London youth to spirit them away for resale in Virginia.
[2] In towns after 1810 or so the apprenticeship system gave way to factory employment for poor children, and school attendance for the middle classes.
Harvest season did not interfere with the scheduled school year, he added, and being under the beneficial and watchful eye of parents strengthened the family.
[11] Using census data processed by Lee Craig,[12] Robert Whaples concludes for the Midwest in the mid-19th century: For each child aged 7 to 12 the family's output increased by about $16 per year—only 7 percent of the [$230] income produced by a typical adult male.
When viewed as an investment, children had a strikingly negative rate of return because the costs of raising them generally exceeded the value of the work they performed.
[21] In the North, reformers were often successful in getting legislation on the books, but were disappointed when enforcement was handled by patronage appointees who proved reluctant to challenge the business community.
Starting in 1898, Montgomery, Alabama, minister Edgar Gardner Murphy crusaded to end child labor across the South but had little success.
[29][30] The South finally passed compulsory school laws and by the late 1920s children under 15 were rarely hired by mills or factories.
The newspaper publishers needed their work and editors shielded them from child labor laws while romanticizing their entrepreneurial enterprise and downplaying their squalid life under dangerous conditions.
[32] The most sweeping federal law that restricts the employment and abuse of child workers is the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
Its child labor provisions were designed to protect the educational opportunities of youth and prohibit their employment in jobs that are detrimental to their health and safety.
[33] Many of the restrictions were temporarily put on hold in World War II, as enlarging factory employment became a national priority.
[34] In agriculture, studies in the 1960s showed Hispanic and other families employed as farm laborers needed the income generated by their children.
[35][36] In 1980, David Koch pledged to "abolish" child labor laws as a part of his vice president campaign on the Libertarian ticket.
In 1982, Ronald Reagan expanded the legal range of jobs permitted for children ages 14 and 15, and made it easier for employers to pay less than minimum wage.
[46][47] Exemptions in labor laws allowing children as young as 12 to work legally on commercial farms for unlimited hours remain in place.
Just a month prior, it was revealed that meatpacking and produce firms were allegedly hiring underage migrants in at least 11 states.
