What Is The Role Of Child Labor In The 1800s

If you were to begin the history of the United States with the American Revolution then the beginnings of child labor in America is older than American history itself. Child labor in America first began on rural farm lands helping work their parents’ lands. Beginning in the mid seventeenth-century children from poor families started going to work as apprentices. With the increase in factories and unskilled labor, children started becoming progressively more prominent in the labor force. The mid 1800’s saw the first states pass some forms of child labor laws, meanwhile child labor continued to increase. In 1870 thirteen percent of all children between ten and fifteen were working and by 1900 the number increased to eighteen percent. Dangerous unsafe work conditions and the increased competition that lowered wages for adults were all concerns of child labor but, the main concern surrounding child labor in the United States was a lack of education. …show more content…
Mary “Mother Jones” Harris, a popular labor activist in the late nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries, set out to bring national attention to the topic of child labor in an effort to develop national legislature abolishing the practice. On July 7, 1903 Mother Jones led a labor march that became known as the “March of the Mill Children.” She attempted to get national attention through newspaper coverage at the beginning of the march in Philadelphia, but was turned down by local newspapers due to mill-owners also being stock holders in the papers, only when other newspapers from outside the area started covering the march did the Philadelphia papers begin their coverage. The march began with a rally at the City Hall in Philadelphia where Mother Jones showed the public children with crushed hands and