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What issues have we dealt with so far?. Was this the worst of it???. Long hours 12 hour days, 7 days a week Injuries & Death 1880 and 1900, some 35,000 workers perished each year in factory and mine accident Low pay $400-$500/year = average income
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Was this the worst of it??? • Long hours • 12 hour days, 7 days a week • Injuries & Death • 1880 and 1900, some 35,000 workers perished each year in factory and mine accident • Low pay • $400-$500/year = average income • $600/year = what was considered necessary for a reasonable amount of comfort
Child Labor – America’s Greatest Shame…? • Child labor increased during and after Gilded Age • 1 million by 1890, 2 million by 1910 • Where children are used? • Coal mines; factories; agriculture, shucking oysters, domestic servants, et cetera • Why children are used? • Low wages, small hands/fingers, desperate, quick, easy to train • Some places whole family employed in factory town • Some local & state laws, usually ignored…South • By 20th century larger call to end child labor
Who fights child labor? • lowered wages for adults (labor unions) • Protect the children • Protect America (education movement) • Exhibitions with images, statistics, stories • Lewis Hines (photographer) • injuries and development issues • Leaflets • Push politicians legislation – first state then national How do Progressives fight child labor?
The Fight Goes National • 1904 – National Child Labor Committee – investigated child labor conditions • Mary Harris Jones, i.e, Mother Jones Children’s Crusade, “we want to go to school, not the mines” -march from Philly to NY • Keating-Owen Act – 1916 • Prohibit transportation over state lines goods that were made by child labor • Supreme Court declared Keating-Own Act unconstitutional • States did create own laws
Why would the progressive child labor movement be closely tied to education movement? • Cannot be educated if they are working!!! • Why do we want them educated??? • Better future • Assimilate!! • Religion • Hygiene • Morals
What does this tell you?? • More than 120 million copies of McGuffey’s readers, which emphasize the ideals of “literacy, hard work, diligence, and virtuous living,” are sold • Massachusetts Teacher article: “In too many instances the parents are unfit guardians of their own children … the children must be gathered up and forced into school” • “These Southern and Eastern Europeans are of a different type than north Europeans who preceded (came before) them. Illiterate, docile, lacking in self-reliance and initiative…their coming has served to dilute tremendously our national stock” – 1909 Stanford Professor Ellwood Cubberley