Child Labor and the Nation

Beveridge, Albert J.

doi:10.1177/000271620702900116

Cited by 2 publications

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“…83 Consequently, states frequently were unwilling to take such advances alone for fear of giving another state an advantage. 84 Additionally, in border areas, children could seek employment in a neighboring state and return home after their shift.…”

Section: : a Historic Yearmentioning

confidence: 99%

History of child labor in the United States—part 2: the reform movement

Schuman¹

2017

MLR

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I am glad to see there is going to be a meeting here for child labor. I am really tired of seeing so many big children ten years old playing in the streets.1 -Prominent lady citizen Don't take these boys away from us! We have just bought these uniforms, and they were made to order. - Shopkeeper in Cleveland, OhioThere is a street in Lawrence, MA, named Camella Teoli Way. To know the story of how that street came to be named is to know the story of a struggle. law, the maximum working hours in the mill were reduced from 56 to 54 per week for women and children. 6 Mill owners sped up the machines in order to make up for the shorter workweek. 7 In protest over the faster rate of production and the commensurate reduction in pay, mill workers-adults and children-walked out on strike.Violence between strikers, replacement workers, police, and soldiers grew as the strike, which became known as the Lawrence Textile Strike, went on. To create publicity for their cause and to ensure the safety of their children, many strikers sent their children out of town. While the children were accepted with open arms in cities like New York, embarrassed Lawrence officials demanded parents keep their children in Lawrence. When the next group of children prepared to depart the train station, they were met by police and soldiers. The police refused to let them board the trains and launched an attack on the group. A 7-year-old was given a black eye when she was picked up and thrown into a paddy wagon by police. Another witness testified to children being thrown around like rags. Citizens across the country were horrified by the events. 8As a result of the outcry over the confrontation in Lawrence, a federal investigation into the strike began at once.A delegation of adult and child strikers was sent to Washington, DC. President Taft asked to see the children.The strikers testified before a House of Representatives committee looking into the events. 9 While the testimony focused on the origins of the strike and subsequent violence, the most lasting impression was made by CamellaTeoli.Teoli explained to the committee that over a year earlier, a man came up to the house and spoke to her father.She had been attending school and the man asked her father why she didn't work. Her father explained that he U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW 3 was unsure whether she was 13 or 14 years old. The man replied that for $4 he could get papers similar to those from the "old country" that said she was 14. Her father paid the $4 and she was sent off to work. 10 A mere 2 weeks into her time at the mill, however, things went terribly wrong. As she told the committee, one day, near the end of her shift, her hair became entangled in a machine and a portion of her scalp had been torn off. She spent 7 months in the hospital and was still undergoing medical treatment. Her father was arrested for falsifying her age. The mill, though, was likely clear from liability because Camella was illegally working as an underage minor. 11

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Section: : a Historic Yearmentioning

confidence: 99%

History of child labor in the United States—part 2: the reform movement

Schuman¹

2017

MLR

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Constitutional Principle, Partisan Calculation, and the Beveridge Child Labor Bill

Sawyer¹

2013

Law hist. rev.

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Following the 1906 midterm elections, Indiana Senator Albert Beveridge was excited to return to Washington to introduce a bill that would prohibit child labor in the nation\u27s factories, mines, and mills. He hoped the bill would curtail the unpopular practice and help rebrand his Republican Party as the nation\u27s progressive party. The Party\u27s old guard, however, proved uncooperative. Recognizing the unpopularity of child labor, they fought the bill on constitutional grounds and challenged Beveridge with a parade of horribles. If Congress could constitutionally regulate child labor, they asked, could it not also regulate the hours or wages of adults? Could it not prevent a man from joining a labor union? Or require it? One would have expected Beveridge—who opposed such regulations—to blunt that criticism with some legal distinction. Instead, he embraced it. Would Beveridge go so far as to claim that Congress could prohibit the interstate shipment of cotton picked by children, asked one Senator. “Yes,” Beveridge retorted, “or [by] a redheaded girl.

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Child Labor and the Nation

Cited by 2 publications

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History of child labor in the United States—part 2: the reform movement

History of child labor in the United States—part 2: the reform movement

Constitutional Principle, Partisan Calculation, and the Beveridge Child Labor Bill

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