The Ongoing Fight Against Child Labor
A report on legislative progress and defeats in the movement to protect children from exploitative work in factories and mines.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
It has been a year of legislative changes, with Pennsylvania, as usual, one of the centers of combat. Year after year, against indifference of the citizens, hostility of the factory inspection department and opposition of powerful interests, the friends of the children have sought to secure laws to exclude them from mines and factories. This year the general child labor law and the mining law were radically changed, the most important gain being a provision requiring adequate proof of age of children seeking employment. In New York, it was found impossible to combat successfully the powerful influence of the canners, and for another year children of very tender years will continue under the insanitary and excessively exacting conditions prevailing in many of these establishments. Experience is teaching that insisting on efficient factory inspection and patching up weak laws to make them enforceable is quite as important as securing higher age limits.
“Experience is teaching that insisting on efficient factory inspection and patching up weak laws to make them enforceable is quite as important as securing higher age limits.”
The 1909 struggle for child labor protections mirrors modern discussions about the erosion of child labor laws in states across the country, showing that labor rights are never permanently settled.
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