Exploring American History
Unit VII – Becoming a World
Power
Chapter 21 - The Progressive Spirit of
Reform
Section 2- Reforming the Workplace
Reforming the Workplace
The Big Idea
In the early 1900s, Progressives and other reformers focused
on improving conditions for American workers.
Main Ideas

Reformers attempted to improve conditions for child
laborers.

Unions and reformers took steps to improve safety in the
workplace and to limit working hours.
Lewis Hines
In 1908 the National Child
Labor Committee employed Lewis
Hines as their staff investigator and
photographer. Hines traveled the
country taking pictures of children
working in factories. Hines also
lectured on the subject and once told
one audience: "Perhaps you are
weary of child labor pictures. Well, so
are the rest of us, but we propose to
make you and the whole country so
sick and tired of the whole business
that when the time for action comes,
child labor pictures will be records of
the past."
Child Labor
Sadie Pfeifer, 48
inches high. Has
worked half a
year.

The rise of child labor in the
United States began in the late
seventeen and early eighteen
hundreds. Industrialization was
a strong force in increasing the
number of working children.

By nineteen hundred more than
two million U.S. children
worked. Children worked in
factories, mines, fields and in the
streets. They picked cotton,
shined shoes, sold newspapers,
canned fish, made clothes and
wove fabric. Children were
forced into this situation in order
to help support their families.
Child Labor



Breaker Boys" were used in the anthracite coal
mines to separate slate rock from the coal after it
had been brought out of the shaft. They often
worked 14 to 16 hours a day.

Working conditions were often
horrendous. Children would
work twelve hours a day, six
days a week throughout the
year.
The hours were long, the pay
was low and the children were
exhausted and hungry.
Factory children were kept
inside all day long, children who
worked the fields spent long, hot
days in the sun or went barefoot
in mud and rain.
These young workers could not
attend school and rarely knew
how to read or write
Child Labor




Children in the United States
continued to work under
deplorable conditions until well into
the mid-twentieth century.
In the early nineteen hundreds,
reformers began working to raise
awareness about the dangers of
child labor and tried to establish
laws regulating the practice.
In 1904, the National Child Labor
Committee was formed.
Throughout the nineteen hundreds,
Congress and the Supreme Court
were at odds over child labor
regulation.
1938- the Fair Labor Standards Act
was passed and children were freed
from the bondage of dangerous
work
Main Idea 1:
Reformers attempted to improve
conditions for child laborers.
• Marie Van Vorst focused attention on the
problem of child labor.
• Many children worked in industry—in 1900
more than 1.75 million children age 15 or
younger.
• Children as young as seven years old
provided cheap labor for manufacturers but
brought home only small amounts of
money to their families.
• Reformers wanted labor laws to protect
women and children.
Child-Labor Reform

Florence Kelley was a leader in the fight against
child labor.

Massachusetts passed the first minimum-wage
law in 1912, and established a commission to set
wage rates for children.

Congress passed federal child-labor laws in 1916
and 1919, banning child-labor products from
interstate commerce.

The Supreme Court ruled the laws unconstitutional.
Reforming the Workplace






Florence Kelly and the 1904- National Child Labor Committee.
Limiting Women’s workdays
No minimum wage.
Courts and Labor Laws
 Lochner v. New York- sided with business owners and denied.
 Muller v. Oregon- set a 10 hour workday for women.
Triangle Shirtwaist fire- death of over 140 men and women.
Helped bring about tougher fire-safety laws.
Unions
 ILGWU- International ladies Garment workers Union.
 IWW- Industrial Workers of the World
Congress Attempts to Control
Child Labor
In 1916 Congress made its first effort to control child labor by passing
the Keating-Owen Act. The legislation forbade the transportation
among states of products of factories, shops or canneries employing
children under 14 years of age, of mines employing children under
16 years of age, and the products of any of these employing
children under 16 who worked at night or more than eight hours a
day. In 1918 the Supreme Court ruled that the Keating-Owen Act
was unconstitutional.
After the Supreme Court ruled that the Keating-Owen Act was
unconstitutional, Congress passed a Second Child Labor Law. This
levied a tax of ten per cent on the net profits of factories employing
children under the age of 14, and of mines and quarries employing
children under the age of 16. This legislation was declared
unconstitutional as a result of the Drexel Furniture Company case
in 1922.
Fair Labor Standards
Act
June, 1938, that Congress passed the Fair
Labor Standards Act.
The main objective of the act was to
eliminate "labor conditions detrimental to
the maintenance of the minimum
standards of living necessary for health,
efficiency and well-being of workers". This
included the prohibition of child labor in
all industries engaged in producing goods
in inter-state commerce. It set the
minimum age at 14 for employment
outside of school hours in nonmanufacturing jobs, at 16 for employment
during school hours, and 18 for hazardous
occupations.
Improving Conditions for Children



Identify - Where did children work?
Recall - What was the purpose of the National
Consumer’s League?
Make Inferences – Why did some parents
ask their employed children to lie about their
age?
Main Idea 2:
Unions and reformers took steps to improve safety in
the workplace and to limit working hours.

Workplace accidents were coming in 1800s and early 1900s.

Some 35,000 Americans were killed industrial accidents
in 1900.

About 500,000 suffered injuries in 1900.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire that killed 146 workers, mostly
women and girls, led to laws to improve factory safety.

Reformers fought for workers’ compensation laws, which
guaranteed a portion of lost wages to workers injured on the
job.

In 1902 Maryland became the first state to pass a workers’
compensation law.
The Courts and Labor

Some businesses opposed workplace regulations, believing
that the economy should operate without government
interference. They went to court to block new labor laws.

New York passed a law in 1897 limiting bakers to a 10-hour
workday.




Bakery owner Joseph Lochner sued.
In Lochner v. New York (1905), the Supreme Court ruled the law
unconstitutional.
The court ruled that the state could not restrict employers from
entering into any kind of agreement with employees.
In 1908, however, the Supreme Court upheld a law restricting
women’s work hours in Muller v. Oregon, ruling that it was a
public health issue.
Labor Organizations
• Labor unions
tried to improve
working
conditions and
pay.
• Union
membership rose
from 800,000 in
1900 to about 5
million in 1920.
• American
Federation of
Labor led by
Samuel Gompers
• Supported
capitalism, an
economic system
in which private
firms run
industry
• Some unions
supported
socialism, a
system in which
the government
owns most
industry.
• Leading socialist
union was
Industrial
Workers of the
World (IWW).
• IWW led by
William “Big
Bill” Haywood
Safety and Working Conditions




Identify – In what year did the Triangle Shirtwaist
Fire take place?
Cause and Effect – Why were so many people
killed in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire?
Analyze – What are some possible reasons business
leaders resisted government regulations?
Predict – If 500,000 people suffered industrial
accidents today, what might happen to that industry
as a result?
Safety and Working Conditions


Compare – How do capitalism and
socialism differ?
Identify Cause and Effect – What
was the effect of Lochner v. New
York on employers?