Dbq Child Labor

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Harsh, dangerous conditions and little to no pay- this is child labor. Child labor commenced in the late 1700s and early 1800s and was ongoing until the early 1900s. Companies believed children were more efficient workers due to their smaller frames. They also believed children were easier to manage and could be paid less than an adult worker. There were many attempts to put an ease to child labor, for example, President Taft created the Children’s Bureau in 1912, which publicized child labor issues. Another example could be The Keating-Owen Child Labor Act of 1916 which banned the hiring of children below 14 years of age to work in industries manufacturing goods for interstate commerce, but both the Children’s Bureau and Keating-Owen …show more content…
School was very rare for working children. Most of their time was taken up working in the factories. Children worked a total of 50 to 70 hours a week, or, on average, 3,120 hours a year. In 1833, the Factory Act passed. This required children to attend school for at least 2 hours. Most kids could not read or write due to the lack of education (Fried 1). The only jobs available to children as they grew older were labor jobs. They did not have the education needed to pursue a successful and happy life. By 1912, President William Howard Taft established the Children’s Bureau which made it the government’s obligation to pay attention to child labor (Appleby, Brinkley, Broussard, McPherson, Ritchie …show more content…
The less money paid to the children, the more money companies made. A child only received a fraction of what an adult worker made. On most nights, children would only make 40 cents to $1.10 at most. Companies tried to justify the lack of pay by saying the money the children didn’t make went towards providing necessities for the orphans, which was far from the truth. By the 1938s, congress finally passed the Fair Labor Standards Act. This act set the borderline age of utilization at 14 for working outside of their school hours in manufacturing jobs, 16 for interstate commerce and 18 for occupations said to be hazardous (Child Labour 1). Child labor was a major issue in the 1900s because it put children’s lives in danger, interfered with their education and rewarded them with little to no pay. For a company’s benefit, they used child workers because they believed they were more efficient workers. Education wasn’t deemed important and was overlooked. The companies wouldn’t pay the children an appropriate salary because they believed they could get away with paying a fraction of the cost they paid adults. Child labor was a brutal part of history. It was a very serious issue that should not be repeated, nor