While child labor movements got the ball rolling, the continuance of the battle to abolish child labor would continue through national organizations. Shortly after the issue of child labor became public national organizations started to form. The first of such national organizations formed was the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC), which was founded in 1904 by Edgar Gardner Murphy. When Murphy created the NCLC he was working closely with a Felix Adler, who was a member of the New York Child Labor Committee. The NCLC’s purpose, according to the organizations secretary Samuel Lindsay, was to, “…investigate the conditions under which children are engaged in gainful occupations in all parts of the country, and to help create a healthy public sentiment in favor of giving every child the best possible chance to make the most of its life.” The beginning of the NCLC shows that the focus was more on state legislature rather than federal, but it still took nationally public awareness to get that far. Hitting the ground running, the NCLC quickly garnered support from highly influential individuals of the time as “…the Committee’s leaders were widely respected, highly capable, and genuinely interested in the cause.” Not only was it the leadership with high respects but “The Committee’s general membership was equally impressive. Social workers, church and labor leaders, businessmen, bankers, lawyers, educators, and government officials appeared on its rolls.” The NCLC appeared to be off to a good start. Not everyone was on board with the NCLC mission to abolish child labor.
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Southern mill owners made claims that groups from the North were backing the NCLC in order to destroy “the Southern way of life.” It was realized that child labor in the south was holding wages down for labor unions which led to more support of NCLC by those unions. Labor unions were under the impression that Southern mill owners were supporting child labor practices because “poorly educated child laborers tended to become poorly educated adults who often were docile employees unlikely to demand higher wages or get involved in union organizing.” This is what led unions to support the NCLC while leading to manufacturers, who were antiunion, to oppose the NCLC’s attempts at eliminating child labor. When a federal bill was brought to congress it was not met with as much support as anticipated. The first bill on the subject to be introduced happened in 1906 by Senator Albert Beveridge of Indiana. Senator Beveridge looked to the NCLC for support explaining his bill to NCLC members on November 23, 1906. The bill was initially designed to “… prohibit the interstate transportation of articles produced in any factory or mine that employed children under fourteen years of age.” While many were in support of a federal child labor law some were skeptical that it would lead to the government becoming too involved in labor relations, which many believed to be more a state than federal issue. Too much of a divide had occurred that in the end the proposed bill led to an attempt for the Bureau of Labor conducting investigations of women and children’s working conditions, which was approved by congress in January of 1907, and the bill not passing. Despite the failure of passing a federal law, states started to create their own child labor laws more frequently, although this was sometimes done solely to prevent federal laws in the future. In spite of widening advancement in child labor reform the number of children continued to grow. The 1910 census showed that between ages ten and fifteen there were two million children in the labor force, this was 18.4 percent of all children in that age group. This is compared to the 1900 census, where the number was 18.2 percent of the group in the labor force. While those numbers may seem bleak there was at least one shining light to come out of this time for those looking to abolish child labor. The NCLC hired a photographer named Lewis Wickes Hine to take photographs of working children. Hine was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin in 1874. He worked in a furniture factory until he obtained a Master’s degree from the
Southern mill owners made claims that groups from the North were backing the NCLC in order to destroy “the Southern way of life.” It was realized that child labor in the south was holding wages down for labor unions which led to more support of NCLC by those unions. Labor unions were under the impression that Southern mill owners were supporting child labor practices because “poorly educated child laborers tended to become poorly educated adults who often were docile employees unlikely to demand higher wages or get involved in union organizing.” This is what led unions to support the NCLC while leading to manufacturers, who were antiunion, to oppose the NCLC’s attempts at eliminating child labor. When a federal bill was brought to congress it was not met with as much support as anticipated. The first bill on the subject to be introduced happened in 1906 by Senator Albert Beveridge of Indiana. Senator Beveridge looked to the NCLC for support explaining his bill to NCLC members on November 23, 1906. The bill was initially designed to “… prohibit the interstate transportation of articles produced in any factory or mine that employed children under fourteen years of age.” While many were in support of a federal child labor law some were skeptical that it would lead to the government becoming too involved in labor relations, which many believed to be more a state than federal issue. Too much of a divide had occurred that in the end the proposed bill led to an attempt for the Bureau of Labor conducting investigations of women and children’s working conditions, which was approved by congress in January of 1907, and the bill not passing. Despite the failure of passing a federal law, states started to create their own child labor laws more frequently, although this was sometimes done solely to prevent federal laws in the future. In spite of widening advancement in child labor reform the number of children continued to grow. The 1910 census showed that between ages ten and fifteen there were two million children in the labor force, this was 18.4 percent of all children in that age group. This is compared to the 1900 census, where the number was 18.2 percent of the group in the labor force. While those numbers may seem bleak there was at least one shining light to come out of this time for those looking to abolish child labor. The NCLC hired a photographer named Lewis Wickes Hine to take photographs of working children. Hine was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin in 1874. He worked in a furniture factory until he obtained a Master’s degree from the