Keating-Owen Child Labor Act

Some of the modern children never experience hard working nor support their families. Unlike the children back in the 1800s to 1920s, where there is no laws enforcement to keep the children inside schools. They were forced or willingly to dropped out of schools in order to support financial needs and lifestyle. Those children were ranges from nine to adult, they had unspeakably experienced because of the performance all kinds of jobs that the factories required. Such as coal mines, work on machines factories, selling the newspaper on streets, and work as chimney sweeps. Why many industries want children to work their factories instead of the adult. Many industries owners preferred children than the adult because there are so many benefits to them. They able to pay those children half payment than the adult salary, they are perfectly fitted in the small hole of the machines and move swiftly.Child labor first established in during the revolution industries from Great Britain and the United States, when there are highly demanded more labor.

So make many families migrants to big and new industries. Some families are from rural and some are the immigrants to the United States for the better opportunities because they think that the United States island of opportunities and freedom for their children and themselves where they can be rich and there is no discrimination toward their races expected African-American races. In order to achieve that goal, many families want their children to work and study at the time. However, because the poverty is so high they willing let their children throw away education for keep families survives.Children dropped out of school unwillingly to discontinues education. To help their family that is in needed and had a trouble with money. Some of the child that was forced to work because their parents have little of income. However, there are no choices for these children besides sacrificial their self to protect their families and forced work. In ordered to financial backing for their family, children were quite schooled difficult social with other people. Children always worked in farming and help their family work and must of them were work in the factory.

The factory work was hard and dangerous, but they must work in order to support their family need. A child with a factory job works 12 to 18 hours a day and 6 days a week just to earn a dollar. Many children began working before the age of 7 such as vending machines in spinning mills or hauling heavy loads. The factories were often damp, dark, dirty and dangerous for the children to work. Some children worked underground in coal mines that make the children suffer health problem. The working children had no time to play like other kids does or go to school, and they have little or no time to rest. The children want to save money for their family so they eat less food and they often became weak and ill. The school was no for the children who worked which mean they couldn’t read or write because they did not get to goschool. Many of children only hope was making labor jobs as their only jobs for the future. Some laws made it that the children have at least 2 hours of school each day. These laws were not followed very well because children were forced to work for families needs. If they didn’t work they will not have enough income to live or have shelter. Children want to to go to schools without worry about their family income or anything just focus on their education and future, but it does not seem right for them.. In general child labor in America meant that the poor could not receive an education to enable them to get better life skilled jobs. Children were lack of education and the spiral of poverty from which there was no opportunity to decreasing for the growing number of unskilled and uneducated workers. A physical handicap were instead toiling away in the coal mine was cause most of the children were unable to attend school. Many children were suffering from those harsh working condition and been abused by others. They have pushed around because they are just kids and scared to stand up for themselves that is why they left school aside.The arrival of a newborn to a rural family was viewed by the parents as a future beneficial laborer and an insurance policy for old age in the 18th century.

A child was expected to help with farm work and other household chores at an age as young as 5. In America it required large quantities of hard work, whether it was planting crops, feeding chickens, or mending fences as a common agrarian lifestyle. In a large families will need a lot of income in order to survive so the parents of the children would often send their children to another household that could employ them such as a maid, servant, or plowboy. Without some compensating labor most families simply could not afford the costs of raising a child from birth to adulthood .The mining industry was an extremely dangerous, unpleasant and filthy occupation that could cost her life. ‘Breaker Boys’ was known as a young boy that processed raw coal by breaking it into sorts of sizes for different types of furnaces because he can fit in a small hole.

Other children were most likely employed as coal bearers, carrying coal in baskets on their shoulders for other workers. The smaller children worked as ‘trappers’ who opened trap doors in the mines to move the coal because they are too young to work in the factory.If a young girls continued to work in mills is a high chance in danger. If they make a mistaken mostly slipping and losing a finger or a foot while standing on top of machines to change bobbins or of being scalped because if their hair got caught. However, after a day of bending over to pick bits of rock from coal, breaker boys were still stiff and in pain. Although if a breaker boy fell he could still be smothered or crushed by huge piles of coal that could put him in dangerous situation. When he turned 12 he would still be forced to go down into the mines and face the threat of cave-ins and explosions.The risk of child labor was so high that leave many children had the health problem and even death.

They work all day and have a little nutrition to give them energy. Lacking nutrition can cause digestion problems, skin disorders, stunted or defective bone growth, and even dementia. Many children were suffered from those harsh labor, such as breaking coal mines and children who work in the machines factories commonly dangerous for them. It can cause their physical and even life if they make a wrong move. Some children that are working in the machines factories and had caused them hands and fingers because they were not so familiarly with the machines or had not been instructed on how to work with it. Children work in factories and help to create a lot of different products such as shoes, clothing, and electronics. They work with small parts and holes that adult would not fit in because their hands and fingers are smaller than adults, faster and more efficient. The working conditions are very dangerous and do not provide any benefit for the children life. Some of the jobs that they had did during child labor is working on the farm, machine factories and selling newspapers.

Kids have carried supplies to the other workers, cleaning up the factory and do whatever they told them to do. The job was horrible and long hours of work that made difficult on their bodies and painful. Many of them were passed out on the floor while they are working but were picked up to get back to work until the end of their time slot. Children were paid five to fifteen cent in a day and they try their best to get the pay as much as they could.The dangerous of all works that children had met are breaking coal mines and machines. Coal mines are not a safe job for both adult and children because while they breaking coal which most likely they will inhale the dust of coal through their nose to a lung. Lung the organs of breathing: they are responsible bringing oxygen from the atmosphere into the body through a series of branching air tubes and exchanging it for carbon dioxide that is released back into the atmosphere. Dust of coal is very dangerous that can cause children to have a type of disease that called Coal Pneumoconiosis.

Coal Pneumoconiosis is black lung because it was caused by breathing from coal dust.During child labor revolution, children were work from twelve to thirteen hours per day and sometimes they work straight to nineteen hours and one time break with little or no pay at all. Which is very extreme and hard for children because they are small and that is why they had a very serious condition. The total of they work is not common during the child labor revolution because there are no laws to keep those crooked industries owners from abused those children. That is not the only they had to do and just stand for a long period of time, but they were in the terrible condition, such as carries large and heavy objects and which is used commonly to those children in factories. Many were killed or injured children during the working. According to statistics in 1900, there were twenty-five to thirty-five thousand deaths and one million injuries occurred on industrial jobs, many of these victims would have been children. These are the children who worked in dangerous conditions.

The payment for children is less than half of the adult salary because the owners of the industry think that children are fewer experiences and maybe not important as the adult. Children are unskilled and many people strongly disagree about child labor because they were mistreated, overwork, and less paid for long hours. They are strongly advocated abolishing child labor and least giving those children a better condition where they are able to handle the work and not overdo. However, the owners’ factories love child labor because of they able to gain amazing profit from those children and they convinced that child labor is for the better economy and family income. Because the parents of child labor are in need of income, so they are hardly acknowledgment those dangerous that their childhood experiences. However, child labor was still not banned.Child labor was so easily taken advantage, many workers sometimes abused them verbally and physically.

Whenever the children came late and they will receive a punishment by making they carry a heavy object around their neck and around walked around the factory about an hour or so. The reason for this punishment is the example so that they will not be late next time. The treatment of those children was so cruel because not only that they received a punishment for arrived late and they have to work for about ten to eleven hours. Most children cannot keep this and mostly affected them in the future.  The first that improvement for child labor is Factory Act, which is established in 1883 by parliament. This Act is the limited children hour of work in the factories. Which is allowed those children that are under nine to thirteen to eight hours per day and those children that are under nine are not allowed to work at all. For those children that are thirteen to eighteen years old allowed to only work under twelve hours a day.

Britain was the first to pass laws regulating child labor. From 1802 to 1878, a series of laws gradually shortened the working hours improved the conditions, and raised the age at which children could work. The laws made a lot of people felt better and wanted their country to pass out the same laws. By those reasons other European countries also adopted similar laws.In the United States, it took many years to outlaw child labor. By 1899, 28 states had passed laws regulating child labor. Many efforts were made to pass a national child labor law. The U.S. Congress passed two laws, in 1918 and 1922, but the Supreme Court declared both unconstitutional. In 1924, Congress proposed a constitutional amendment prohibiting child labor, but the states did not ratify it. Then, in 1938, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act. It fixed minimum ages of 16 for work during school hours, 14 for certain jobs after school, and 18 for dangerous work.

Today all the states and the U.S. government have laws regulating child labor. These laws have cured the worst evils of children working in factories.However, the government did pass the law to protect the children from doing the labor but did not keep immigrant children. Many immigrant parents think that the laws just for Americans people only and did not affect them. Also, they were poor and in needed to keep their family survive. Immigrants make child labor worse because they did not follow the law that was passed to protected and limited the conditions of child labor. In the mid-1800, about 1,600 laws were passed to forbidden child labor and let them focus on education more. Many children immediately abandon after the moment of the accident. Since no one cares about those children safe, so there is a lot of chance of danger that makes the children injury or even death. One hospital stated that about 1,000 of children that they were brought to the hospital and treated for mutilation and wound that those children get it from big and dangerous machines.

Their employer did not even care about them at all because the moment that accident occurred their employers stop children wage, no provide medical attendant and no compensation is offered. In other words, the injuries children were left in the hospital without caring about how do those children parents going to pay the hospital bill.However, in 1916 Keating-Owen Child Labor Act was a federal law passed limiting how many hours children were allowed to work. Although prohibiting the employment of children under the age of fourteen in factories producing goods for interstate commerce. There have been people who made movements to stop child labor. In 1904, the National Child Labor committee was formed. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) set the minimum working age at 14 for employment outside of school hours and 16 during school hours. In 1938, The Fair Labor Standards Act was passed, this made children free from work.

The payment for children is less than half of the adult salary because the owners of the industry think that children are fewer experiences and maybe not important as the adult. Children are unskilled and many people strongly disagree about child labor because they were mistreated, overwork, and less paid for long hours. They are strongly advocated abolishing child labor and least giving those children a better condition where they are able to handle the work and not overdo. However, the owners’ factories love child labor because of they able to gain amazing profit from those children and they convinced that child labor is for the better economy and family income. Because the parents of child labor are in need of income, so they are hardly acknowledgment those dangerous that their childhood experiences. However, child labor was still not banned.Child labor was so easily taken advantage, many workers sometimes abused them verbally and physically. Whenever the children came late and they will receive a punishment by making they carry a heavy object around their neck and around walked around the factory about an hour or so.

The reason for this punishment is the example so that they will not be late next time. The treatment of those children was so cruel because not only that they received a punishment for arrived late and they have to work for about ten to eleven hours. Most children cannot keep this and mostly affected them in the future.  The first that improvement for child labor is Factory Act, which is established in 1883 by parliament. This Act is the limited children hour of work in the factories. Which is allowed those children that are under nine to thirteen to eight hours per day and those children that are under nine are not allowed to work at all. For those children that are thirteen to eighteen years old allowed to only work under twelve hours a day. The first laws that pass regulating to child labor was Britain . From 1802 to 1878, a series of laws gradually shortened the working hours improved the conditions, and raised the age at which children could work. The laws made a lot of people felt better and wanted their country to pass out the same laws.

By those reasons other European countries also adopted similar laws. It took many years in the United States to outlaw child labor. By 1899, 28 states had passed laws regulating child labor and many efforts were made to pass a national child labor law. The Supreme Court declared both unconstitutional in 1918 and 1922 because the U.S. Congress passed two laws. In 1924, the states did not ratify it because Congress proposed a constitutional amendment prohibiting of child labor. Then, in 1938 it fixed minimum ages of work during school hours, certain jobs after school, and for dangerous work by Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act. Today all the states and the U.S. government have laws regulating child labor. These laws have cured the worst evils of children working in factories and help to build up children future.However, the government did pass the law to protect the children from doing the labor but did not keep immigrant children. Many immigrant parents think that the laws just for Americans people only and did not affect them.

Also, they were poor and in needed to keep their family survive. Immigrants make child labor worse because they did not follow the law that was passed to protected and limited the conditions of child labor. In the mid-1800, about 1,600 laws were passed to forbidden child labor and let them focus on education more. Many children immediately abandon after the moment of the accident. Since no one cares about those children safe, so there is a lot of chance of danger that makes the children injury or even death. One hospital stated that about 1,000 of children that they were brought to the hospital and treated for mutilation and wound that those children get it from big and dangerous machines. Their employer did not even care about them at all because the moment that accident occurred their employers stop children wage, no provide medical attendant and no compensation is offered.

In other words, the injuries children were left in the hospital without caring about how do those children parents going to pay the hospital bill.However, in 1916 Keating-Owen Child Labor Act was a federal law passed limiting how many hours children were allowed to work. Although prohibiting the employment of children under the age of fourteen in factories producing goods for interstate commerce. There have been people who made movements to stop child labor. The National Child Labor Committee was formed in 1904. In 1938 the Fair Labor Standards Act set the minimum working age at 14 for employment outside of school hours and 16 in school hours. The Fair Labor Standards Act was passed which made children free from work.

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Keating-Owen Child Labor Act. (2021, May 18). Retrieved April 16, 2024 , from
https://supremestudy.com/keating-owen-child-labor-act/

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