Transcript 14.5 Child Labor

Alabama’s Campaign Against
Child Labor
From Pruitt, P. & Sallee, S.
1900
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Many Alabama families had left farms in
depressions of 1880s and 1890s to
work in mills
Men,women and children all employable
30% of 8,000+ mill workers were
children
Labor Union Activity Nationally
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Against child labor
Concerned that low child wages
depressed wages for adult workers
Sought to build support for restricting
child labor
Sent Englishwoman Irene Ashy to
Alabama to gain support of middle class
women
Early Alabama Alliance
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Middle class club women
Edgar Gardner Murphy, Rector of
Episcopal church in Montgomery
Ashby found 430 children < 12 who
worked for 12+ hours daily
Testified to Alabama legislature using
humanitarian arguments
Mill Owners Argued for Child Labor
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Mills kept poor whites from poverty
Factory work good training for kids
Parents expected kids to work
Parents would move to Georgia if
Alabama limited child labor
Economic and social disaster
Efforts at reform killed in 1901
Murphy Continued Fight
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Worked with Alabama women’s groups
and Montgomery Ministerial Assn
Noted that Massachusetts had outlawed
child labor
Noted high profits at mills
First Restrictions Minor
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1903 children could work no more than
66 hours per week
1907 maximum reduced to 60 hours
1907 kids younger than 16 could not
work at night
Inspector of mills designated, but
regulations had little impact
1911
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National Child Labor Committee had
national convention in Birmingham
Result of activities of Birmingham’s Nellie
Kimball Murdoch (early Alabama SW)
Theodore Roosevelt, Jane Addams and
Florence Kelley were there
Exhibit of Lewis Hine’s Alabama pictures of
child labor
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Photos demonstrated that child labor
problems were not just in mills and mines
Used in pamphlet aimed at 1915
legislature
Minimum age for work raised to 14; no
night work for children under 16
Also activities toward compulsory
education (80 days through age 15)
Girl working at mill
Young Coal Miners
Mill Work
Continuing Organizing by Women
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Murdoch started organizing county
“advisory boards” on child welfare
Helped juvenile court with cases of
abused and neglected children
Child Welfare in Alabama produced with
help of UA professors
1919 Reforms
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Child labor restricted to 48 hours/week
and no more than 8 hours/day
Compulsory education for all between
8-16 at 100 days/year
Needed 4th grade education to work
Created state Department of Child
Welfare
Lorraine Bedsole Bush
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Appointed first head
of Alabama Child
Welfare Department
“General oversight
over the welfare
work for minor
children”
3 female factory
inspectors
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CWD was the culmination of work of
women progressives in Alabama
Focused on right to childhood, freedom
from premature exploitation and
education at least to literacy
Percentage of children employed in
Alabama fell from 45.4% in 1900 to
24.1% in 1920