PRESENTED BY: Ms. S. Epstein
A.
New York City, NY
Child
Labor in American History
A
Social Problem that Transcended Centuries
Breaker boys, Woodward Coal Mines, Kingston, Pa
Consider the
clothes you are wearing. Are those shoes expensive? Who made them, and
where? Could they have been made by
children working long hours in a factory somewhere in this world? Might the
In the
In
this web quest, you will examine child labor issues in
Good Luck! Children are depending on you!
The class
will be divided into six groups. Each
will prepare a PowerPoint presentation on the
development of the child labor issue throughout American history. Each group will work on an aspect of the issue,
and will present its Power Point product orally to the entire class. The best
will be sent to
I The Groups:
The six groups will follow the Public Policy Analyst
guidelines for examining social issues in history. Use the links provided below to guide your
discussion. The worksheets for each step are linked below. The group must
complete their assigned step and worksheet related to the problem of child
labor, using the Internet sites given in the resource section of the web quest.
You may use other outside material as well. Remember, students must work
COOPERATIVELY to complete the task. Grades will be given on a group basis
Please Answer All Worksheets In MS Word Format.
Group #1 WILL IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM. You will discuss its nature and extent. Use
the worksheet and example provided as guides.
Before you start, read HOW TO DEFINE A
SOCIAL PROBLEM.
Group #2: Will GATHER EVIDENCE of the existence of the problem in American history. Use the worksheet and example provided as guides.
Group #3: Will determine the CAUSES of the problem. Use the worksheet and example provided as
guides.
Also, this group will discuss attempts
to establish policies to deal with the issue prior to 1930 (
Group #4 will EVALUATE a major
public policy put into effect to deal with the problem: The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. (
For more information on the provisions of the Act
regarding young workers, see
Frequently Asked
Questions Regarding Child Labor
Use the AHPPA worksheet and example provided as
guides.
Group #5 will examine the BENEFITS of this
policy, The Fair Labor Standards Act.
For information on this Act, see the instructions for Group #4.
Please read and follow the AHPPA
guidelines, and use the worksheet provided.
Group #6 will examine the COSTS OF THIS POLICY,
Please read and follow the AHPPA
guidelines, and use the worksheet provided
Children were often used to perform menial
tasks, such as running this loom, during the early industrialization
II:
GROUP ASSIGNMENTS
Each group member will have a
specific role and task to perform as follows:
ASSIGNMENT # 1:
POWER POINT CREATOR
This student will create the 10 PowerPoint slides.
Remember to include a title page, an identification of the problem, evidence of
your problem, existing policies, new policies, and your recommendation. The
power point creator will also act as TIME KEEPER,
EDITOR AND ORAL PRESENTER HELPER. Remember, the oral presentation must not last
more than 10 minutes
ASSIGNMENT # 2: ORAL PRESENTERS
Two members from your team will be assigned the task
of presenting the power point as an oral presentation to the class. These
students must work closely with the power point creator and researchers.
These two
members must take turns speaking.
ASSIGNMENT # 3: RESEARCHERS
These two students will use the internet resources and
complete the worksheets. ALL MEMBERS OF THE GROUP WILL HELP IN THIS TASK.
NOTE: All group members must work cooperatively.
Grades, according to the rubrics below will be assigned on a group basis
III. Tasks to be completed by each group:
Product # 1: Requirements
For The Powerpoint
You will work with the team members to produce a
PowerPoint presentation and discussion that identifies root causes of CHILD
LABOR and considers policies that will foster a CHANGE. Your PowerPoint presentation must include the following
slides:
·
Title Slide: Title and Names of All Group Members
·
Each slide must have a “graphic” and text explaining
the graphic and explaining the step (#1-#6) of the Public Policy Analyst that
your group worked on. These can be photographs, clip art, graphs, tables, etc.
You will create a minimum of 8 SLIDES
Each group will have a specific aspect of
the Public Policy Analyst that must be represented in the PowerPoint.
Product # 2: Oral Report
Each group will use the PowerPoint presentation to
make an oral report to the class. The oral presentation will follow the steps
of the American History Public Policy Analyst (AHPPA). It must not be more than
10 minutes in length.
SPECIFIC
WEBSITES:
National Child Labor Committee Collection Photographs by Lewis Hine
Child Labor in New York City Tenements, 1908
The History of Child Labor in the United States:
Hammer v. Dagenhart
Child Labor: The
Keating Owen Child Labor Act 1916
Child Labor: American Treasures of the Library of
Congress
GENERAL WEB SITES
OTHER RESOURCES
Child Labor (Issue) –
History Resource Center
Child Labor – History
Resource Center
Child Labor in the
1910s – History Resource Center
Working Conditions in Factories (Issue) – History Resource Center
New
York Public Library Database-
(You will need your library card- the barcode is your access code)
YOUR GROUP POWERPOINT/ORAL PRESENTATION AND TERM
PAPER WILL BE EVALUATED USING THE FOLLOWING RUBRIC:
SCORE OF 5:
v SHOWS A THOROUGH UNDERSTANDING OF THE THEME OR PROBLEM
v ADDRESSES ALL ASPECTS OF THE TASK
v SHOWS AN ABILITY TO ANALYZE, EVALUATE, COMPARE AND/OR
CONTRAST ISSUES AND EVENTS
v RICHLY SUPPORTS TOPIC WITH RELEVANT FACTS, EXAMPLES, AND
DETAILS
v POWERPOINT PROJECT AND PAPER ARE TYPED WITH NO SPELLING
ERRORS
SCORE OF 4:
v SHOWS A GOOD UNDERSTANDING OF THE THEME OR PROBLEM
v SUPPORTS TOPIC WITH RELEVANT FACTS, EXAMPLES, AND DETAILS
v SHOWS ABILITY TO ANALYZE, EVALUATE ISSUES
v DOES NOT SUPPORT ALL ASPECTS OF THE TASK
v POWERPOINT PROJECT AND PAPER ARE TYPED WITH NO SPELLING
ERRORS
SCORE OF 3:
v PRESENTS SATISFACTORY UNDERSTANDING OF THE TOPIC
v ADDRESSES MOST ASPECTS OF THE TASK
v ABLE TO ANALYZE ISSUES AND EVENTS, BUT NOT IN DEPTH
v DEMONSTRATES A GENERAL PLAN OF ORGANIZATION
v POWERPOINT PROJECT AND PAPER ARE TYPED BUT HAVE ERRORS
SCORE OF 2:
v SHOWS LIMITED UNDERSTANDING OF TASK
v ATTEMPTS TO ADDRESS TASK
v INCLUDES INFORMATION THAT CONTAINS INACCURACIES
v IS POORLY ORGANIZED
v RESULT/S UNACCEPTABLE
SCORE OF 1:
v FAILS TO INTRODUCE OR SUMMARIZE THE TASK
v LACKS AN ANALYSIS OR EVALUATION OF THE ISSUES
v IS ILLEGIBL
From completing this web quest you should have learned
the importance of studying history. The lessons of the past prevent us from
repeating mistakes. You also should have learned the dire social problem of
“child labor”. It destroys youth, families, generations and civilizations. Any
society’s future is in its youth. Child labor was blight on Americans past and
present. We buy goods at low prices without knowing the shame behind the
product. Hopefully you exposed this serious social problem and found a policy
solution to stop this heinous practice. You, further, have experienced the
importance of a public policy analyst and an historian in a democratic society.
These social scientists are invaluable making life equitable for all citizens.
Let’s hope you made a difference and will continue so in the future! Thanks for
your participation.
Social Studies
Standard 1: History of the
Students will use a variety of intellectual
skills to demonstrate their understanding of major ideas, eras, themes,
developments, and turning points in the history of the
Standard 2: World History
Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of major ideas, eras, themes, developments, and turning
Standard 4: Economics
Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of how the United States and other societies develop economic systems and associated institutions to allocate scarce resources, how major decision-making units function in the United States and other national economies, and how an economy solves the scarcity problem through market and nonmarket mechanisms.
Standard 5: Civics, Citizenship, and Government
Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to
demonstrate their understanding of the necessity for establishing governments;
the governmental system of the
English Language Arts
Standard 1: Language for Information and Understanding
Students will listen, speak, read, and write for information and understanding. As listeners and readers, students will collect data, facts, and ideas; discover relationships, concepts, and generalizations; and use knowledge generated from oral, written, and electronically produced texts. As speakers and writers, they will use oral and written language that follows the accepted conventions of the English language to acquire, interpret, apply, and transmit information.
Standard 2: Language for Literary Response and Expression
Students will read and listen to oral, written, and electronically produced texts and performances from American and world literature; relate texts and performances to their own lives; and develop an understanding of the diverse social, historical, and cultural dimensions the texts and performances represent. As speakers and writers, students will use oral and written language that follows the accepted conventions of the English language for self-expression and artistic creation.
Standard 3: Language for Critical Analysis and Evaluation
Students will listen, speak, read, and write for critical analysis and evaluation. As listeners and readers, students will analyze experiences, ideas, information, and issues presented by others using a variety of established criteria. As speakers and writers, they will use oral and written language that follows the accepted conventions of the English language to present, from a variety of perspectives, their opinions and judgments on experiences, ideas, information and issues.
Standard 4: Language for Social Interaction
Students will listen, speak, read, and write for social interaction. Students will use oral and written language that follows the accepted conventions of the English language for effective social communication with a wide variety of people. As readers and listeners, they will use the social communications of others to enrich their understanding of people and their views.
Working Conditions in
Factories
|
Working
Conditions in Factories (Issue)
Factory workers had to face
long hours, poor working conditions, and job instability. During economic
recessions many workers lost their jobs or faced sharp pay cuts. New employees
found the discipline and regulation of factory work to be very different from
other types of work. Work was often monotonous because workers performed one
task over and over. It was also strictly regulated. Working hours were long
averaging at least ten hours a day and six days a week for most workers, even
longer for others. For men and women from agricultural backgrounds these new
conditions proved challenging because farm work tended to be more flexible
and offered a variety of work tasks. Factory work was also different for
skilled artisans, who had once hand-crafted goods on their own schedule. Factory conditions were
also poor and, in some cases, deplorable. Lack of effective government
regulation led to unsafe and unhealthy work sites. In the late nineteenth
century more industrial accidents occurred in the In order to save money many
employers hired women and children to work in factories because these workers
would work for lower wages than men. Some women were paid as little as six
dollars per week, a sum much lower than a male would have received. Most
female workers performed unskilled or semi-skilled machine work but some
worked in industries that demanded heavy labor. Some women, for instance,
worked on railroads, while others were employed as machinists. Children also worked long
hours for low wages. The number of children employed in factories rose
steadily over the last three decades of the nineteenth century. By 1900
roughly 1.7 million children under the age of 16 worked in factories; less
than half that many children had been employed 30 years before. Under
pressure from the public many state legislatures passed child labor laws,
which limited the hours children could work to ten hours per day, but
employers often disregarded such laws. In southern cotton mills children who
operated looms throughout the night had cold water thrown in their faces to
keep them awake. Long working hours for children also meant that accidents
were more likely to occur; like adult workers, many children were injured or
killed on the job. Worker responses to poor
factory conditions and low wages were varied. Some employees intentionally
decreased their production rate or broke their machines, while others quit
their jobs and sought work in other factories. Other workers resorted to a
more organized means of protest by joining labor unions although most
industrial workers were not union members. Most workers, having few
alternatives, simply endured the hardship of factory work. In response to the problem
of poor working conditions and the apparent indifference of industrial
barons, membership in the American Federation of Labor (AFL), a union for
skilled workers formed in 1886, grew rapidly from 256,000 members in 1897 to
1,676,000 in 1904. More radical and politically active trade unions often had
even larger memberships, mostly because they were not as exclusionary as the
AFL and because they welcomed unskilled labor, like those who worked in
factories. One of the most radical, the Industrial Workers of the World
(IWW), founded in 1905 and popularly known as the Wobblies, recruited
primarily among the unskilled immigrants but also competed with the AFL to
attract skilled laborers. Less radical than the Wobblies and more successful
at recruiting supporters were the socialists, who gained political strength
because of the growing numbers of immigrants and disenchanted unskilled
laborers. The lack of real class conflict in the Trying to prevent
legislation to provide job security, guarantee a minimum wage, or ensure the
safety of the workplace, most businessmen and conservatives argued that wages
were set by the marketplace and that higher wages and worker protection would
lead to higher prices for consumers. Government had long supported business
using court injunctions and armed troops to put down strikes and break
unions. In the 1890s, ruling that unions operated as "combinations in
restraint of trade," the federal government used the Sherman Antitrust
Act against unions more often than against businesses. During the Progressive era
several states passed legislation helpful to labor, such as laws establishing
a minimum wage for women, maximum work hours, and workmen's compensation, and
abolishing child labor and convict leasing. Groups such as the National Child
Labor Committee, the Woman's Trade Union League, and the National Consumers
League spearheaded the drives for many of these measures. Ironically,
organized labor opposed minimum-wage laws for women because it preferred to
win such measures through collective bargaining or strikes rather than
through legislation. Business had to persuade labor to accept workmen's
compensation plans, which unions opposed because the benefits were not very
generous and many sorts of workers were excluded. Businessmen wanted the
plans to protect themselves against the large payments that courts sometimes
awarded in injury cases. In 1904 a group of
reformers established the National Child Labor Committee, an organization
that dedicated to investigating the problem of child labor and lobbying
state-by-state for legislation to end the abuse. It was, however, not
effective because each state feared restrictive legislation could give other
states a competitive advantage in recruiting industry. In 1907 a federal law
against child labor, sponsored by Senator Alan Beveridge (1899-1911) of In 1912 a Children's Bureau
was established as an agency of the Department of Commerce and Labor. Its
mandate was to examine "all matters pertaining to the welfare of
children," which included child labor, and it was led by Julia C. Lathrop,
the first woman to head a federal agency. Progress, however, was still slow.
In 1916 senators Robert L. Owen and Edward Keating sponsored a bill that
restricted child labor; the bill passed both houses of Congress with the
strong support of President Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921). The law was based on
a recommendation of the National Child Welfare Committee but it only
prevented the interstate shipment of goods produced in factories by children
under 14 and materials processed in mines by children under 16. It also
limited children's workday to eight hours. In 1918 the Supreme Court declared
this law unconstitutional because it was directed toward the regulation of
working conditions not the control of interstate commerce. In 1919 Congress
passed the Child Labor Act, which placed a tax on companies that used child
labor, but the court again overturned the law. In 1924 there was an attempt
to amend the Constitution to prohibit child labor but it never received
approval from the required number of states. In the late nineteenth
century more industrial accidents occurred in the Bibliography
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