![]() ![]() He felt so strongly about the abuse of children as workers that he quit his teaching job and became an investigative photographer for the National Child Labor Committee. Lewis Hine, a New York City schoolteacher and photographer, believed that a picture could tell a powerful story. In 1913 the Children's Bureau was transferred to the Department of Labor. These efforts resulted in the establishment in 1912 of the Children's Bureau as a federal information clearinghouse. It hired teams of investigators to gather evidence of children working in harsh conditions and then organized exhibitions with photographs and statistics to dramatize the plight of these children. The organization received a charter from Congress in 1907. In 1904 a group of progressive reformers founded the National Child Labor Committee, an organization whose goal was the abolition of child labor. Instead, child labor condemmed them to a future of illiteracy, poverty, and continuing misery. They argued that long hours of work deprived children of the opportunity of an education to prepare themselves for a better future. They faced high accident rates due to physical and mental fatigue caused by hard work and long hours.īy the early 1900s many Americans were calling child labor "child slavery" and were demanding an end to it. They developed diseases related to their work environment, such as tuberculosis and bronchitis for those who worked in coal mines or cotton mills. Some suffered from stunted growth and curvature of the spine. As children worked in industrial settings, they began to develop serious health problems. Going to school to prepare for a better future was an opportunity these underage workers rarely enjoyed. ![]() However, child laborers barely experienced their youth. Immigrants and rural migrants often sent their children to work, or worked alongside them. Children were seen as part of the family economy. Businesses liked to hire children because they worked in unskilled jobs for lower wages than adults, and their small hands made them more adept at handling small parts and tools. The number of children under the age of 15 who worked in industrial jobs for wages climbed from 1.5 million in 1890 to 2 million in 1910. Factory wages were so low that children often had to work to help support their families. The demand for labor grew, and in the late 19th and early 20th centuries many children were drawn into the labor force. The object of employing children is not to train them, but to get high profits from their work."Īfter the Civil War, the availability of natural resources, new inventions, and a receptive market combined to fuel an industrial boom. "There is work that profits children, and there is work that brings profit only to employers. The same would apply to workers in that reduced competition among companies would result in decreased leverage for potential employees.Teaching With Documents: Photographs of Lewis Hine: Documentation of Child Labor If such a situation exists, then advantaged companies may have the ability to pursue a course that results in their private benefit, but not necessarily to the benefit of society as a whole. What if there is not perfect competition? What if some companies have advantages - due to any of a whole array of reasons - that place them in a non-competitive position vis a vis their competitors? Without perfect competition then other companies are not necessarily able to compete with other companies that have certain advantages. However, isn't there a huge assumption in this philosophy? Doesn't the whole justification of this belief depend on the condition that there is perfect competition and any company and any worker have the equal ability to compete with one another? As part of this philosophy, workers should also be free to compete with each other and choose to work wherever they wish and this process will also result in the best results for the workers as well. The belief is that the competition among various businesses will ultimately result in the best outcomes for society in general - Adam Smith's "invisible hand". This means that businesses, in competition with one another, should be free to determine their own paths free from any government rules or regulation. As I understand it, Laissez-faire ideology maintains that the "free market" is the best way to determine what businesses can and should do. ![]()
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