It is not enough to say that something good,
something beautiful is being born.
We must help it become a
reality-not a dream.
-Ella Reeve Bloor
Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday October 8, 1907
Child Labor in America: An Army of Little Factory Children
From the Appeal to Reason of October 5, 1907:
Killing Children for Profits.
Mrs. Ella Reeve Bloor, of Philadelphia, writer and lecturer on industrial topics, who is investigating child labor conditions in the factories of western Pennsylvania, declares that hundreds of little children under the legal age are employed in a chimney factory at Charleroi, Pa.
[Said Mrs. Bloor:]
An army of little girls came flocking from all directions to the factories this morning. They work from 7 a. m. until 6 p. m., when little boys take their places and work until 2 a.m. The little fellows are afraid to go home at that hour and many boys of 10 and 11 years carry revolvers to and from their work. I believe the condition of child labor in Pennsylvania is as bad as it is in the south.
To show you how the glass manufacturers disobey the law, I will state that I have secured 6,300 convictions in six years of my office. One large factory covering 640 acres in Alton, Ill., has two gates for inspectors to get in and lots of holes for kids to get out.-Edgar T. Davies, Chief Factory Inspector of Illinois.
