Hi I’m Tyler M from Mr. Sals 6th period class. One of the biggest social issues of the 1900’s was child labor. Child labor is the employment of children at regular and sustained labor. Children as young as 4 would be put to work for little pay.
One place were they would have children work is in coal mines. They would have them crawl through tunnels that were too small and narrow for adults. They would put the children to work at coal mines at ages 5 and would mainly die before age 25. The hours these kids would work would be 4am to 5pm. Conditions in the mines were extremely dangerous with high risk of death. Some kids were killed by falling asleep in the track while moving mine carts ran them over. Others died from gas explosions. Many kids that didn’tdie on the job developed lung cancer and other diseases. Children were also employed as chimney sweeps. They would climb the walls cleaning the soot. Some of there masters would light the fireplace in order for them work faster. Most children fell and was burned alive.
In 1904, the National Child Labour Committee was formed. It was made in order to try and get congress to end child labor. Jane Adams, one of its members, said that over two million children under the age of 16 were in paid employment in America. The NCLC hired Lewis Hines as there lead investigator and photographer. There weren’t many laws against child labor, and the ones that were passed were not enforced. There were age limits and safety laws that no one payed attention to.