Tag: National Child Labor Committee

Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: Story of Child Labor, “The Apostate” by Jack London

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Quote Lafargue re Child Labor, ISR p945, June 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 5, 1909
“The Apostate” by Jack London, The Story of a Child Laborer

From The International Socialist Review of June 1909:

A Story of Child Labor

“THE APOSTATE”

BY JACK LONDON.

Letter I, ISR p352, May 1909F you don’t git up, Johnny, I won’t give you a bite to eat!”

Child Labor, Lewis Hine, NCLC, Nicholas Karambles 6 AM, Dover NH, May 15, 1909

The threat had no effect on the boy. He clung stubbornly to sleep, fighting for its oblivion as the dreamer fights for his dream. The boy’s hands loosely clenched themselves, and he made feeble, spasmodic blows at the air. These blows were intended for his mother, but she betrayed practiced familiarity in avoiding them as she shook him roughly by the shoulder.

“Lemme ‘lone!”

It was a cry that began, muffled, in the deeps of sleep, that swiftly rushed upward, like a wail, into passionate belligerence, and that died away and sank down into an inarticulate whine. It was a bestial cry, as of a soul in torment, filled with infinite protest and pain.

But she did not mind. She was a sad-eyed, tired-faced woman, and she had grown used to this task, which she repeated every day of her life. She got a grip on the bedclothes and tried to strip them down; but the boy, ceasing his punching, clung to them desperately. In a huddle at the foot of the bed, he still remained covered. Then she tried dragging the bedding to the floor. The boy opposed her. She braced herself. Hers was the superior weight, and the boy and bedding, the former instinctively following the later in order to shelter against the chill of the room that bit into his body.

As he toppled on the edge of the bed it seemed that he must fall head-first to the floor. But consciousness fluttered up in him. He righted himself and for a moment perilously balanced. Then he struck the floor on his feet. On the instant his mother seized him by the shoulders and shook him. Again his fists struck out, this time with more force and directness. At the same time his eyes opened. She released him. He was awake.

“All right,” he mumbled.

She caught up the lamp and hurried out, leaving him in darkness.

“You’ll be docked,” she warned back to him.

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Hellraisers Journal: Southern Child Labor Conference, Held in New Orleans, to be Maintained as Permanent Organization

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Quote Mother Jones, Alabama Child Labor, AtR p2, Oct 24, 1908————————-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 26, 1909
New Orleans, Louisiana – Southern Child Labor Conference Deemed a Success

From Louisiana’s Reserve Le Meschacébé of April 17, 1909:

A PERMANENT ORGANIZATION
—–

CHILD LABOR CONFERENCE WILL BE
MAINTAINED AS A FIXTURE.
—–
Successful Opening Meeting Renders Members
Enthusiastic For Future.
—–

Child Labor, Lewis Hine, Doffer Boys 10 n 12, Gastonia NC, Nov 1908
Doffer boys, ages 12 and 10.
Gastonia, North Carolina
—–

New Orleans.-The child labor conference of the Southern states, called by Governor J. Y. Sanders of Louisiana, came to a close after a three-days’ session, in which great things were accomplished, resolutions being adopted fixing age limit, working hours, etc., and permanent organization effected.

The convention was the second of its kind in the history of the new commercial South, but it will not be the last for already Memphis has been tacitly agreed upon as the next place of meeting, and in the twelve months which must elapse before that meeting the delegates are pledged to work mightily to create sentiment and mold opinion, so that even greater reforms than those suggested during the past few days may be gained for the “Child of the Man With the Hoe,” as Senator Colville so strikingly describes the work children. Eleven states were represented.

The chief work of the conference was the adoption of a resolution containing important provisions, to be embodied in a uniform child labor law to be proposed in the legislatures of all the states in the South…..

———-

[Photograph added is by Lewis Hine.]

From The Survey (formerly Charities and Commons) of April 17, 1909:

SOUTHERN CHILD LABOR CONFERENCE
—–

Child Labor, Lewis Hine, Smallest girl ab 10, Whitnel NC, Dec 1908
Smallest girl about 10 years old, has been in mill 2 years, 6 months at night.
—–

In the contest over a better child labor law in the Louisiana Legislature last summer, the issue most warmly debated was whether a working day of nine hours or ten should be adopted for children under eighteen years of age, and for women. The Legislature decided upon the ten-hour day and Governor Sanders promised Miss Jean Gordon, who had led the fight for child labor reform, to call a conference in New Orleans to recommend a uniform child labor law for the southern states.

Governor Sanders wrote to all the southern governors asking them to attend the conference personally if possible and to send interested delegates: manufacturers, representatives of labor unions, and of different associations pledged to child labor reform. Delegates to the conference were appointed by all the southern governors except Governor Comer of Alabama, and Governor Campbell of Texas. Governor Comer’s reason for not appointing delegates—that Alabama had already the best child labor law in the country with the possible exception of Massachusetts, was so ridiculous that his action focused attention upon the deficiencies of the Alabama law, it being generally believed that these rather than the excellence of the law furnished the reason why the governor, himself a cotton manufacturer, deplored any further discussion or agitation of the subject in Alabama.

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Hellraisers Journal: “Children in the Southern Cotton Mills” -Speech of Lewis Hine Illustrated with Lantern Slides

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Mother Jones Quote, Child Labor Man of Six Snuff Sniffer———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday February 19, 1909
New York, New York – Lewis Hine Speaks to Social Problems Club

From The Brooklyn Daily Eagle of February 15, 1909:

CHILDREN IN COTTON MILLS
—–
Lewis Hine Tells Social Problems Club
About Conditions in the South.
—–

Child Labor, L Hine, Noon Newberry Mills SC, Dec 1908
Noon hour at Newberry Mills of South Carolina.
All these children are working here.
Witness, Sara R. Hine.
—–

Before the Social Problems Club of the Young Women’s Christian Association, yesterday afternoon. Lewis Hine gave a lecture on the “Children in the Southern Cotton Mills.” The lecture was illustrated with lantern slides. Mr. Hine has worked in the Ohio valley and in the South investigating child-labor conditions. His camera has played an important part in his investigations, and the pictures shown yesterday were taken in mills of North and South Carolina and in Georgia. The speaker said that no little trouble is experienced with the superintendents and overseers of the factories in gaining admission and permission in take pictures. They are suspicious of all Northerners and are afraid that conditions existing in the mills will be exaggerated.

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Hellraisers Journal: A. J. McKelway of National Child Labor Committee Reports on Efforts to Protect American Children

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Quote Mother Jones, Alabama Child Labor, AtR p2, Oct 24, 1908~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 23, 1908
Report on Recent Legislation from the National Child Labor Committee

From the Duluth Labor World of November 21, 1908:

EFFORTS TO SUPPRESS CHILD LABOR EVILS
—–
Nine States Have Passed Remedial Measures
and Entire Country is Aroused.
—–
But Much Yet Remains to be Done
to Protect American Children.
—–

Mr. A. J. McKelway, secretary of the National Child Labor Committee for the southern states has recently published a report of the years’ progress in child labor legislation, from which we glean the following excerpts.

Child Labor, Trapper Boy MacDonald WV by Hine, Oct 1908, LoC

Progress in 1908.

The year 1908 was an off year in state legislative sessions, as thirty-eight states have their legislatures meet in 1909. The national child labor committee reports progress in nine states, in addition to the passage of the District of Columbia child labor bill, which had been agitated for several years. This act of federal legislation was not all that was hoped for by the friends of the cause, as the pages of the senate, though not of the house, and the children of dependent parents are exempted from the operation of the law. In other respects the law approaches the standard of the more advanced states.

New York State.

An important amendment to the New York child labor law was the transferring of the enforcement of the mercantile child labor provisions from the local boards of health to the state labor department, and the provision for a bureau of mercantile inspection. This amendment was bitterly contested by interested parties and Governor Hughes sent two special messages to the legislature concerning the necessity of this change in the law.

New Jersey and Ohio.

In New Jersey, the effort to forbid night work for children under 16 years of age failed, but a compulsory education amendment requires children from 7 to 17 to attend school, except that children of 15 who are regularly employed are excused from such attendance.

In Ohio two efforts to weaken the child labor law failed and an eight-hour law was passed for boys at work under 16 and for girls under 18. This puts Ohio abreast of the most advanced states in this regard.

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Hellraisers Journal: From Socialist Woman: “Horrible Crime of Child Labor in America” by Josephine Conger-Kaneko

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Mother Jones Quote, Suffer Little Children, CIR May 14, 1915

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Thursday March 5, 1908
Josephine Conger-Kaneko on Crime of Child Labor in America

From The Socialist Woman of March 1908:

THE HORRIBLE CRIME OF CHILD LABOR IN AMERICA.
—–
Josephine Conger-Kaneko.

“How long,” they say, “how long, Oh, cruel nation
Will you stand, to move the world on a child’s heart;
Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation,
And tread onward to your throne amid the mart?”

Socialist Woman, eds Kaneko and Josephine Conger, March 1908

A little over one hundred years ago the first act was passed by the British Parliament to abate the evils of child labor.

The workhouses of London at that time were crowded with pauper children to the extent that their managers were paying a premium to the manufacturers to take them off their hands. These puny, half-starved children whom nobody owned, orphans, deserted infants, who had become a burden on the tax payers, were sent by the hundreds and thousands to supply the demand for cheap labor which was springing up in factories on every hand. They were housed in barracks, were driven long hours at hand tasks by their overseers, were fed the coarsest of food, and died by scores from disease—bone rot, curvature of the spine, consumption, and other infections produced by their manner of living.

It was this state of things that brought about the first law regulating in any way the labor of the child. This law was passed in 1802. And it was but the merest beginning. The evils of child labor were so many, so varied and so persistent, that to this day there is no adequate child labor law in the whole world. In 1833 it was estimated that in England there were 56,000 children between nine and thirteen in factories. many of whom worked sixteen hours a day. The English Woman’s Journal of 1859 gives the following account of pauper children in London:

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Ella Reeve Bloor Describes Army of Little Factory Girls of Western Pennsylvania

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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.

Ella Reeve Bloor, Packing Hse Invstg, Abq Eve Ctz, June 5, 1906

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.

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