A Study Of The Anti-Child Labor Movement In The American South (1901-1938

In the United States,the use of child labor can be traced back to the colonial period,but the large-scale use of child labor in the North began in the early 19 th century during the American Industrial Revolution.In the South,Reconstruction ended in the1870 s and reached its peak in 1900.At the end of the 19 th century,a series of anti-child labor legislation was promulgated in the northern part of the United States,while in the same period,the anti-child labor movement in the South made slow progress and failed to enact effective anti-child labor legislation.According to the 11 th U.S.Census of 1890 and the 12 th U.S.Census of 1900,"The percentage of children under 16 years of age in industrial occupations remained constant in the South at 25 percent,while in the North it dropped from 15 percent to 7.7 percent."The failure of Alabama’s child labor legislation in 1901 led directly to the creation of the Alabama Child Labor Commission.Gdgar Gardner Murphy wrote numerous pamphlet and articles on child labor in the South and worked on child labor legislation through the Alabama Child Labor Commission.Other Southern states also began to promote child labor legislation under Murphy and the Commission’s influence.Later,with the increasing attention of the Northern media to the problem of child labor in the South and the change of Murphy’s thoughts on child labor,he began to unite with antichild labor members in the North and in 1904 joined the formation of the National Child Labor Committee.The anti-child labor movement in the South became a national action.Samuel Mc Cune Lindsay,the Commission’s permanent secretary,and Alexander J.Mc Kelway,its assistant secretary,urged the creation of state child labor committees and related child labor legislation in the Southern states,while the major industrial states in the South also showed a tendency toward state cooperation.However,the progress of child labor legislation in the region has been slow and ineffective because of the opposition and resistance of the big manufacturers in the South.Given this,the National Child Labor Committee and its anti-child labor members in the South recognized that only federal child labor legislation could truly solve the problem of child labor in the South.The National Child Labor Committee sponsored and pushed for federal child labor legislation in 1916 and 1919,which was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.In 1924,Congress enacted and passed The Child Labor Amendment,which attempted to grant Congress the right to supervise child labor by amending the Constitution.It needed to be ratified by 36 states in the United States,that is,3/4 of the states,but it was finally pending.During the New Deal period,the Roosevelt administration successively promulgated the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act.The National Industrial Recovery Act of 1935 and its attendant industry regulations,which greatly restricted the employment of child labor,was again ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.It was not until the enactment of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 that the federal government finally established the supervision of child labor in the United States,making enterprises under the dual control of the federal and state,which greatly improved the legislation standards of child labor in the southern states.The development of anti-child labor movement in the South of the United States has many characteristics.For example,considering the development course of the movement,it has the characteristics of late onset,long-term,difficult and repeated.From the point of view of supervision,its main body has the characteristics of upward;In terms of the action taken,it has obvious exclusivity;And from the object of the solution,it has a strong sense of racial prejudice.Admittedly,after nearly 40 years of anti-child labor movement in the South of the United States,there are still many defects,but it has still achieved a relatively significant result,that is,the number of child labor in the region has been effectively controlled.