From local restrictions to federal legislation: The role of the U.S. government in regulating child labor in the United States of America
(1904–1939)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.65074/1ws7p323Keywords:
Child Labor, National Child Labor Commission, Florence Kelly, Keating-Owen lawAbstract
Child labor has been one of the most controversial social and economic issues in the history of the United States, particularly during the period of rapid industrialization in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Child labor was closely linked to the structure of the industrial economy, to conditions of poverty and migration, and to the weakness of compulsory education systems, which made their work a widespread and relatively acceptable phenomenon in many American states.
The problem was broad and significant and difficult to solve by the efforts of organizations with limited resources and capabilities, but with the rise of reform movements and the increasing social awareness of the dangers of child labor to health, education and social stability, increasing demands began to emerge for federal government intervention as the only way to overcome the shortcomings of local regulation.
This research is based on the premise that the regulation of child labor in the United States was not the product of linear legislative development, but rather the result of a complex interplay between economic and social conditions and reform movements. The research aims to trace the role of the US government in this transformation during the period 1909–1939, through an analysis of the stages of local regulation, early attempts at federal intervention, and the decisive federal legislation of the late 1930s.
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