The Fight for Childhood
A national campaign to end the exploitation of children in the factory system gains ground in state legislatures.
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The movement against child labor has gained force this year, with states passing new laws to protect children. In addition to laws forbidding the employment of children under fourteen years of age, states like Kansas, North Dakota, and Oklahoma now extend protection against night work to girls under eighteen and limit the hours of work for women and minors. These laws also require rigid proof of age for children seeking employment and basic literacy standards. Experience is teaching that insisting on efficient factory inspection is just as important as setting higher age limits. In South Carolina, the law, which had been a dead letter, shows promise of becoming effective through the appointment of two factory inspectors who will report all children under legal age as prima facie evidence of illegal employment.
“Experience is teaching that insisting on efficient factory inspection and keeping up weak laws to make them enforceable is quite as important as setting higher age limits.”
Early 20th-century labor advocates recognized that child labor laws were only as effective as the inspectors enforcing them. Today, this struggle continues in debates over child labor regulations and the precariousness of working hours in the gig economy.
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