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ABSTRACT

THE AMERICAN CHILD MAGAZINE:
CRUSADER AGAINST CHILD LABOR,
1915 to 1930

 

By

Susan Anne Fullerton

This study examines The American Child, a unique periodical

 

dedicated to abolishing child labor in America. As the official publica-
tion of the National Child Labor Committee, the magazine fought for
legislative reform in the states, where child labor laws were mediocre
or non-existent, and attempted to enlighten an apathetic public to the
plight of the child worker.

The magazine sought to abolish the labor of all children under
age 14. A second goal was to guarantee children under age l6 an eight-
hour day between the hours of 6 a.m. and 7 p.m., and exempt them from

work in mines and quarries. Intensive campaigning of the American Child

 

between l9l2 and l924 resulted in the passage of two federal bills for-
bidding child labor and consideration of a much publicized federal
children's amendment. Both bills were later declared unconstitutional
and the amendment has not yet been ratified by the necessary three—

fourths majority of the states.

Susan Anne Fullerton

The National Child Labor Committee, formed in 1904, began publish-
ing the Child Labor Bulletin in June 1912, as a service to its members.
As the reform movement broadened in scope and gained popularity, the
bulletin was adapted to appeal to the general public and in May 1919,

was renamed The American Child, "a journal of constructive democracy."

 

Through content analysis of the American Child, the study traces

 

the magazine's beneficial effects on child labor conditions and improve-
ment of the public attitude regarding the labor of children. Between
1900 and 1930, the number of child workers was reduced from over two
million to about 200,000. The American Child's contribution to this
reduction is ascertained through examination of contemporary periodicals
and newspapers.

General histories of labor, social work, education, and public
welfare recognize the magazine's invaluable contribution to amelioration
of the child labor problem. Owen R. Lovejoy, outspoken editor of the
American Child from 1912 to 1926, and secretary of the NCLC from 1904 to

 

1926, is well remembered in history as "the children's statesman."

Crusade for the Children, a history of the NCLC written by Walter

 

I. Trattner, was especially helpful in providing pertinent data and back-

ground information used in this study.

Accepted by the faculty of the School of Journalism, College
of Communication Arts and Sciences, Michigan State University, in

partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts degree.

 

Director of Thesis

THE AMERICAN CHILD MAGAZINE:
CRUSADER AGAINST CHILD LABOR.
1915 to 1930

By

Susan Anne Fullerton

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Journalism

1976

Copyright by
SUSAN ANNE FULLERTON
1976

to my parents

1'1

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My thanks to Dr. Maurice R. Cullen Jr., my thesis adviser; my
utmost gratitude to Dr. Stanley I. Soffin, my academic adviser and
trusted friend; and special appreciation to Dr. George A. Hough III,

who lent support and assistance at a most crucial time.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

Page

LIST OF FIGURES .......................... v

INTRODUCTION ........................... 1
Chapter

I. THE AMERICAN CHILD .................... 4

Overview ......................... 4

Contents ......................... 12

II. THE PUBLISHERS AND THE PROBLEM .............. 19

III. THE AMERICAN CHILD'S BATTLE FOR LEGISLATION ........ 29

IV. IMPACT AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS ................ 53

The Publishers ...................... 53

The Publication ...................... 62

APPENDICES ............................ 68

A. Minimum Standards of the National Child Labor Committee . . 68
B. Summary of Legislation .................. 69
SOURCES CITED ........................... ’ 71

iv

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page
1. Groups favoring a national amendment ............ 46

2. Status of amendment action by states, March 1, 1925 . . . . 49

INTRODUCTION

The National Child Labor Committee and its publication, Ihg_
American Child, fought most vehemently for child labor reform during the
first three decades of the 20th Century, continually emphasizing the need
to safeguard children throughout the land. The Committee did not attempt
to effect public control over industry or to reshape America's social
order, but fought valiantly to enlighten an apathetic public and intro-
duce effective child labor legislation in the states and the nation.

Through the American Child, the Committee told citizens of the evils of

 

child labor and the danger to society of the waste of children, America's
most valuable resource.

At the request of children's organizations and social workers,
the Committee and its magazine attempted to formulate a charter of child-
hood which would harmonize and coordinate the various phases of child
welfare and child labor reform into a uniform national standard.1

At its formation in 1904, the Committee identified the problem,
collected data, and began the fight for improved child labor laws.
Legislation was placed foremost on the agenda, due to the deplorable

conditions of child labor in the states. In 1904, there were more than

two million child workers, under age 16, many of whom worked twelve hours

 

1"Conference on Child Labor,” School and Society. May 22, 1915,

 

p. 740.

a day, six days a week, under dangerous and unhealthy conditions for
pennies per hour.

The broad child labor and child welfare movements were part of
a wide campaign for general social betterment. The NCLC and its American _
§h11g_also fought for improved child health, children's aid societies,
prevention of juvenile delinquency, children's recreational areas, and
better educational facilities.1

The American Child was written, edited, and published by a staff

 

of NCLC members at the Committee's office in New York City. Every year,
more than a dozen NCLC members toured the country, campaigning for child
labor committees and surveying the deplorable conditions under which
children worked. The NCLC defined child labor as "the work of children
under conditions which interfered with their physical development and
education, and thus prevented them from becoming happy and socially use-
ful adults."2
The precise role of the NCLC concerned the publication of data,
but was difficult to define. At the time of the Committee's inception,
there were no generally accepted standards of protection against child
exploitation. Between 1904 and 1954, the NCLC and the American Child
published more than 400 studies revealing child labor conditions in

. 3
America.

The contribution of the NCLC and its publication are summed up

 

1Robert H. Bremner, From the Depths (New York, 1964), p. 213.

 

2Walter I. Trattner, Crusade for the Children (Chicago, 1970), p. 9.

 

3National Child Labor Committee, 50th Anniversary Report (New
York, 1954), p. l.

in the praise of three newspapers which applauded the NCLC's twenty-fifth

anniversary in 1929. The New York Times said, "Under the militant leader-

 

ship of the NCLC, great progress has been made through state legislation
in liberating the child from menaces to its health and physical develop-
ment and preserving its educational birthright." The New York Post con-
curred, saying, "For what it has done to rescue children from mine and

factory, and to see that every American boy and girl has a fair start in
life, the NCLC deserves the gratitude not only of the boys and girls who
are directly benefited, but of the entire public." And, from the Fall

 

River (Mass.) Herald-News, "The NCLC has unquestionably exerted a powerful

 

influence in behalf of working children. It has presented its appeal

persistently in all places where public opinion needed to be aroused in

order to bring about reforms in the law."1

 

1"Reflections from the Press," The American Child, September,
1929, p. 5.

 

CHAPTER I

THE AMERICAN CHILD

 

Overview

The American Child, originally called the Child Labor Bulletin,

 

 

was the official organ of the NCLC. It sought to publicize the Commit-
tee's views and statistical findings in the areas of child worker abuse
and child labor legislation. In June 1912, a skeleton crew of NCLC mem-

bers began publication of the Child Labor Bulletin, a magazine to inform

 

members of the progress of the child labor reform movement in the states
and the nation.

Membership had grown from 46 in 1904 to 5,006 in 1912. There was
an increasing demand for more frequent publicity, and publication of data
and NCLC successes in the field. Previously, child labor information and
reports on the NCLC's annual conferences had been published yearly in the
Agnal§_gf_America, lengthy bi-monthly volumes put out by the American
Academy of Political and Social Science, and in pamphlets authored by
NCLC members.

The Bulletin was edited by Owen R. Lovejoy, capable secretary of
the NCLC and renowned public speaker. Lovejoy soon came to be known as

II]

"the children's statesman. His staff included Felix Adler, chairman

 

1Trattner, Crusade, p. 62.

4

of the NCLC, and Homer Folks, Florence Kelley, Samuel McCune Lindsay, and
Wiley H. Swift, members of the NCLC Board of Trustees. Prominent Ameri-
cans, among them governors, senators, congressmen, bishops, editors, labor
leaders, and social workers, contributed articles to the fledgling publi-
cation.
According to the NCLC, the Bulletin's purpose was to publicize
the various aspects of child labor reform, note the progress of the move-
ment, solicit news items and reports on child labor, and promote the
cause of child labor reform. Members believed that "the effort to develop
an intelligent interest in the enforcement of child labor laws is as
important as the work of investigation to reveal existing conditions and
of campaigns to secure good laws."1
By 1921, 300 libraries subscribed to the Bulletin and complete
files of the magazine could be found as far away as the University of
Tokyo. The magazine was generally regarded as the authoritative child
welfare organ in America.2

Circulation peaked at 14,000 in 1925. NCLC membership at that

time was about 9,000 and a special press service carried American Child
3

 

articles and editorials to 1,300 American dailies. During the battles
over the two child labor bills in Congress between 1916 and 1922, sub-
scribers eagerly followed the bills' progress as noted by the magazine,

but interest and circulation waned with defeat of the legislation.

 

1"News Notes," Child Labor Bulletin, June 1912, p. 1.

 

2"News Notes," Child Labor Bulletin, February 1915. P. 1
3

 

"Report of the Secretary," The American Child, November 1925,

 

p. 11.

The quarterly issues, sounding boards for the NCLC, at first
featured detailed, descriptive articles written by NCLC investigators.
These heart-rending treatises were aimed at the emotions of Americans,
enlisting support in the fight against child exploitation. As national
periodicals picked up the articles, more Americans chose to subscribe to
the Bulletin for $2 per year and acquaint themselves with the Unknown
evil lurking behind America's industrial magnificence.

The need for more concise and readable articles soon led the
editors to encapsulize lengthy stories and tabulate data into easy-to-
read charts and tables. Circulation grew annually, as did distribution
of NCLC literature. Child Labor Day, initiated by the NCLC in 1908 and
celebrated every year on the last Sunday in January, received wide pub-
licity in newspapers and magazines. Requests for child labor day liter-
ature were noted in the annual reports of Secretary-Editor Lovejoy.

In 1915, there were 6,279 requests for literature from 48 states.
Press notices of child labor day activities were sent to 1,250 newspapers
and 42,265 pamphlets urging federal action were circulated. NCLC member-
ship was 8,300.1

In 1917, the Bulletin celebrated the adoption of a federal child
labor bill by issuing 121,802 pamphlets and sending 185 special stories
to 550 periodicals. Membership in the NCLC was 10,124.2

As the Bulletin gained popularity and readership, specialists

were added to the staff to enhance readability and content of more

 

1"News Notes," Child Labor Bulletin, November 1915, p. 149.

 

2"Publicity," Child Labor Bulletin, November 1917: P- 152.

 

specific articles. Jane Addams of Hull House authored articles on prob-
lems of city and tenement child workers. Juvenile court judge Benjamin
B. Lindsey added information on juvenile crime and the courts system.
Labor leaders such as Samuel Gompers of the American Federation of Labor,
James F. Barrett of the Typographical Union, and George L. Berry of the
National Pressman's Union, supported child reform as viewed by organized
labor. Congressmen Edward Keating and Robert Owen wrote articles enlist-
ing support for legislation to forbid child labor. Specialists in school
administration, from the National Congress of Parents and Teachers and
the N.E.A.,added their views on child labor and compulsory school atten-
dance.

The Bulletin accepted and printed contributions from interested
Americans both for and against child labor reform. "Child labor reform
is becoming socialized and patriotic," wrote Managing Editor Raymond G.
Fuller.1

Lewis N. Hine, renowned photographer of the plight of the poor,
was hired as the official photographer for the NCLC. His colorful and
passionate candid pictures helped arouse public sentiment against the
torment of the child laborers. The Bulletin often featured Hine's
pictures on its cover and to supplement articles, further illustrating
the unhappiness of child workers.

The NCLC had fought for the adoption of a federal Children's
Bureau for six years and in 1912, the Bulletin wecomed the new agency

as a valuable research assistant and associate in the fight for child

 

1Introduction, The American Child, May 1919, p. l.

 

1abor reform. Julia C. Lathrop, chief of the Children's Bureau, later
wrote to Editor Owen R. Lovejoy, praising the magazine's work in their

shared endeavor.

The American Child is always interesting. Fresh material
and readable presentation characterize its pages and it
performs well the invaluable service of popularization. No
one should read it who is unwilling to have his sense of
responsibility for the children of the nation painfully
quickened.1

In May 1919, the Child Labor Bulletin was renamed The American

 

 

Child, The revamped magazine went from well over twenty monotonous folio-
sized pages of lengthy reports to four tabloid-sized pages of well-designed
columns and regular features. More general information was included,

along with discussion on every subject concerning the welfare of American
children of school age. Interest in child labor legislation was growing,
as was the magazine's appeal to the general public. The new emphasis was
intended not only to please NCLC members, but to satisfy an increasing
enrollment of readers who realized the danger and problems of child labor

for the first time. In 1919, 133 newspapers printed American Child

 

excerpts.2

Continuing the rejuvenated, accelerated campaign, the editor
tripled his investigatory staff and in December 1922, Lovejoy doubled the
number of pages to eight. Almost fifty regular staff members rededicated
themselves to promoting a federal children's amendment. The Supreme

Court had annulled two previous child labor reform bills. This

 

1"Shop Talk," The American Child, February 1921, p. 367.

 

2"News Notes," The American Child, November 1919, P- 84-

 

legislative action had aroused more Americans to the cause and the American
ghjlg_wisely chose to capitalize on the new interest.

Praise for the magazine's accomplishments came from people in all
professions. "The interest you are developing, not merely in the work
that is being done to correct evils and safeguard children in industry,
but the efforts you are making to broaden the general field of interest
in child life and education, commends the magazine to me very strongly,"

wrote Joseph K. Hart, associate editor of The Survey Magazine.1

 

Arthur F. Lederle, supervisor of School Attendance in Detroit,
wrote, ". . . it (the magazine) is up to date, sensible, and attacks
problems at the source. The fearless and impersonal attitude of your
investigators also is apparent in the work undertaken by members of your
staff."2

Professor E. C. Linderman, field secretary for the American
Country Life Association, called the magazine a running history of the
theory and practice underlying the child labor movement. He said,

Ih§_Amerigan Child is a quarterly journal which covers

a wide range of child welfare interests. It is well edited
and contains information valuable to social workers,
physical directors, physicians, teachers, legislators,

sociologists, employers of labor, and all persons interested
in child welfare as one of the avenues of social progress.3

Not everyone was so quick to praise the magazine's efforts. Man—

ufacturers and farmers denied the derogatory effects of child labor,

 

1"Shop Talk,‘I The American Child, p. 367.

2Ibid.

31bid.

lO

maintaining that the need for regulation was overstated and conditions
were exaggerated. Industrialists were proud to add to the income of a
child who wanted to work and had no interest in schooling. Those opposed
to regulation claimed that gainful employment kept children off the
streets and led to maturity and responsibility at an early age.

The American Child countered with facts and figures showing that
child labor was an injustice to American children. It was injurious to
their health, education, and good conduct. The factory child was sub-
jected to noxious industrial smokes and gases, exposed to accidents,
and lost his childhood and any opportunity for play or education. His
work was not educational work but overwork. Child labor also led to
adult unemployment, lowered wages, poverty, and economic waste.

In 1915, the magazine counted 200,000 children under 16 at work
in factories with 50 percent working illegally from nine to eleven hours
daily.1 Said Lovejoy, "The only motive that any manufacturer has in
employing child labor is the profit to be secured."2 The Journal of the
National Education Association agreed, saying, "The aims and conditions
of work should be determined by the principles of education, and not by
those of the counting house."3

Farm labor, shrouded with prejudice and misconception, was

usually considered quite wholesome for children and was one of the most

 

1"News Notes," Child Labor Bulletin, February 1915. P- 27-

2"Annual Conference on Child Labor," Child Labor Bulletin,
February 1919, p. 255.

3"The First Victory," The American Child. April 1924. P- 5-

11

difficult obstacles to child labor reform. Farm periodicals defended
children in agriculture. The editors of the Farm Journal said in 1924,
"There is a kind of mush-headed opinion abroad in the land that seems to
consider work an evil, and hard work a device of Satan."1

Two well-known essayists pleaded for the children on Southern
farms. "Give us worse cotton, but give us better men," wrote Ralph
Waldo Emerson. From England,Thomas Carlyle intOned, "Deliver me those
rickety, perishing souls of infants and let the cotton trade take its
chances."2

Articles by American Child staffers were soon in great demand
in national magazines. Informative and appealing pieces by R. G. Fuller,
Owen Lovejoy, and Florence Taylor were serialized and printed in Good_
Housekeeping, The Nation, The Literary Digest, and other well-read
periodicals.

Newspapers, however, were not so eager to further the cause of
child labor reform. William Randolph Hearst of the New York American
denied the influence of newspaper advocacy, saying, "anything practical

"3

must be done by legislation. In Newspaper Crusaders, Silas Bent says

that most newspapers were against child labor reform for "the obvious

but unconfessed reason that it (regulation) might interfere with news-

"4

boys. Editors were also fearful of alienating manufacturers who were

 

1"The Anvil Chorus," The American Child, March 1924: P- 3.

2Julia E. Johnsen, comp., Selected Articles gn_Child Labor (New
York, 1925), p. 81. '

3"Labor's Only Friend-Hearst's New York American," New York
Times, Oct. 15. 1906. p. 8.

4

 

Silas Bent, Newspaper Crusaders (New York, 1939), p. 234.

12

major contributors to their advertising budgets.

The American Child included "newspaper enlightenment" as one of
the unfinished tasks in the fight for child labor reform. Its editors
often referred to their long experience with "atrocious garbling and mis-

quotation of facts by American dailies."1

Surveys counted between
200,000 and 300,000 newsboys working twelve hours a day, seven days a
week, for about $4.2 Such adverse publicity induced editors to avoid an
active part in the reform crusade, and they cleverly referred to newsboys
as little independent merchants.

Generally, the American Child was a much-quoted child labor

 

authority, in demand by public speakers, child welfare agencies, educa-
tional authorities, social reformers, and public welfare organizations.
Its surveys and reports were utilized by the Children's Bureau, the
National Consumer's League, the National Conference of Social Work, the
National Conference of Charities and Corrections, the National Education
Association, the American Federation of Labor, the National Child Health
Association, and an increasing number of state and local child labor

committees.

Contents

The Child Labor Bulletin was a loosely organized publication with

no specific format from quarter to quarter. Every issue contained at

 

'"News from the Child Welfare Field," The American Child,‘
February 1921, p. 292.

2"Chiid Labor in Our Cities," Good Housekeeping. November 1922,
p. 145.

13

least one report submitted by an NCLC member who had conducted a survey
of child labor conditions in a particular state and area, such as agricul-
ture in South Carolina, coal mining in Pennsylvania, or glass production
in Connecticut.

A study of working girls in Cincinatti, conducted by an NCLC pub-
licity agent, revealed 13-year-old seamstresses laboring ten to twelve
hours in dimly lit, unventilated work rooms for less than $3 per week.
Helen C. Dwight reported, "Many of (the tasks) require so little either
of skill or of intelligence that not much selection need be made." Any
young girl who could wield a needle and thread qualified to earn pennies
per hour, with a twenty-minute lunch break daily.1

Surveys in industry exposed unbelievable conditions under which
children worked. Children in the glass industry stooped constantly in
intolerable heat amid dust and fumes, often sustaining cuts, burns, and
obscured vision from flying particles of glass.

A study by Raymond G. Fuller, the Bulletin's managing editor,
reprinted in a Good Housekeeping_series, told of 608 New York City tene-
ment child laborers stringing 1,000 beads per hour, eight hours per day,
seven days per week, for between $2 and $5 weekly.2

Reports on child health and education were also a vital component

of the Child Labor Bulletin. A Cleveland Education Survey, published by

the Division of Education of the Russell Sage Foundation and reprinted

 

1"Ciris at work and Why They Work," Child Labor Bulletin, Feb-
ruary 1915, p. 10.

2Raymond G. Fuller, "Child Labor in Our Cities," Good Housekeep-
ing, November 1922, p. 65.

14

in the Bulletin, cited industrial neglect and violation of school laws

1 The report called

as a typical problem of child labor law enforcement.
for better cooperation between schools and industry.

George D. Strayer, president of the NEA, urged national aid to
education, while noted educators including Anne S. Davis, chief vocational
advisor for the Chicago Public Schools; A. C. Monahan, specialist in rural
school administration for the U. S. Department of Education; Dr. John
Dewey, professor at Columbia University; and the Honorable P. P.

Claxton, Commissioner of Education in Washington, D. C., exhorted
Bulletin readers to fight for improved child education and welfare.

Dr. George P. Barth, director of school hygiene in Milwaukee,
reported one-eighth of Milwaukee school Children at work under improper
health supervision.2 The Child Health Organization, affiliated with the
NCLC, urged better supervision of child health and nutrition, and con-
demned the use of children to collect donations for the war effort.3

Samuel Gompers was not the only labor leader who fought child
labor. Charles J. Fox, chairman of the Maryland State Board of Labor
and Industries, and John Price Jackson, commissioner of Labor and Indus-

try in Pennsylvania, urged more stringent enforcement as the key to

child labor reform.4

 

1"The Next Chapter in Child Labor Reform," Child Labor Bulletin.
November 1916, p. 159.

2"Health Supervision of Child Workers." Child Labor Bulletin,
November 1918, p. 215.

3"News Notes," Child Labor Bulletin, August 1918. P- 85-

4"Proceedings of Annual Conference," Child Labor Bulletin, May
1917. PD. 5 and 9.

15

Women's Clubs throughout the nation eagerly lent their support
to the cause. Mrs. Thomas W. Lingle, president of the North Carolina
Federation of Women's Clubs, wrote in the Bulletin, "Child labor is one
of the unexpected evils resulting from the great industrial revolution;

1 Mrs.

the manufacturer, the purchaser, and the parent are responsible."
Eugene Reilly, recording secretary of the General Federation of Women's
Clubs, said in the same issue, "The club movement is now a great social
and civic force . . . it exists for the preservation of the child, the
woman, and the home."2

Prominent judges, legislators, and government officials also
authored pieces for the Bulletin. Among these were Justice Felix Frank-
furter; Benjamin B. Lindsey, juvenile court judge; James J. Davis, U. S.
Secretary of Labor; and Franklin D. Roosevelt, governor of New York.

Other regular features included "News Notes," a column consisting
of child labor legislation progress in the states, comments selected from
periodicals and newspapers, and successes and defeats of the NCLC in
various child labor and welfare areas. Another informative, but somewhat
sporadic feature contained "News from the Child Welfare Field," with
information contributed by social workers and concerned reformers.

May issues gave detailed reports on the proceedings of NCLC

annual conferences which were held every February in randomly selected

cities such as Chicago, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. Detailed

 

1"Effects of Child Labor on Social Standards," Child Labor Bulle-
tin, May 1916, p. 21.

2"National Responsibility for Child Labor," Child Labor Bulletin.
May 1916, p. 59.

16

information on speakers, excerpts from lectures and discussions, and
child labor reform victories reported by delegates were shared with
Bulletin readers.

Every November issue included the annual report of the secretary
of the NCLC. Owen R. Lovejoy, editor of the Bulletin, held this position
from 1904 until his resignation in 1926. Lovejoy detailed statistics on
magazine circulation, NCLC membership, requests for child labor material,
publicity for the cause, and the number of pamphlets, reports, and
articles distributed by the Bulletin in that year.

When the Bulletin was revamped and renamed The American Child
in May 1919, the length of most articles was shortened. The general
intent was to appeal to a larger public. The new magazine was devoted
to the "whole child," with up-to-date news and discussion by experts on
education, child labor, juvenile delinquency, recreation, juvenile courts,
and laws affecting children.1

Circulation continued to climb slowly and the renewal rate for
NCLC membership remained steady at about 80 percent. In 1915, membership
totaled 8,706 with 1,923 new members. In 1917, of 10,124 NCLC members,
2,056 had joined that year. In 1919, there were 12,780 members, with
4,304 new members.2

The drastically shortened magazine now numbered four concise

pages. This radical change induced the casual reader to more readily

 

1Trattner, Crusade, p. 155.

2"Annual Report of the Secretary," Child Labor Bulletin, November
1915, p. 150; November 1917, p. 153; and November 1919, p. 102.

17

scan the data and quotes concerning child labor. Previously, it had
taken considerable dedication and interest for readers to plod through
20- or 30-page articles written by NCLC emmbers who returned with reports
from the child labor field, eager to see their work reprinted in full in

the Child Labor Bulletin.

 

As always, Lovejoy was a wise editor and talk of a national
children's amendment increased circulation, as did the reduction in monot-
onous reading material. The columns remained the same, with data and
information presented in a more readable, appealing, and succinct manner.
To capitalize on the increasing interest in child labor legislation and
reach more readers with more information, the publishers enlarged the
magazine in December 1922 to eight pages. The format was similar, with
additional information the only factor contributing to the increased
length.

The time was ripe to assail the public with information and
engender public sentiment for sponsorship of a national amendment. News-
hungry readers eagerly awaited information on legislation, their appetites
whetted by the Supreme Court annulment of the two child labor bills passed
in Congress in 1916 and 1919. Also in December 1922, the optimistic Love-
joy, with the approval of the NCLC, transformed his quarterly "journal of
constructive democracy" into a monthly "bulletin of general Child welfare.”
Again, the format remained the same. Circulation increased somewhat, but
peaked in 1925 at 14,000. After 1925, interest in the laggard amendment

declined and NCLC membership and American Child circulation both suffered

 

and never regained their former standing.

The American Child contained no commercial advertising.

18

Occasionally, there was a half-page appeal column with a plea for con-
cerned readers to subscribe to membership in the NCLC through a donation
of $2 or more. Publication depended on voluntary contributions and
yearly donations from NCLC members who renewed their membership. There
were three categories of members. A guarantor member paid $100 or more
per year, a sustaining member donated $25 to $100, and for $2 to $25 a
citizen could join as an associate member. Associate membership was the
most popular and by 1906, the NCLC listed 981 associate members in forty
states.1

After the reduction in the magazine's length and enlargement in
page size, the general appearance improved remarkably. The addition of
cutlines, sketches, attractive columns and headings, and an occasional
Hine photograph added much to reader appeal and readability. Placement
of the shorter, more attractive articles was balanced in regular columns
and conscientiously planned to enhance general appeal. When the pages
were enlarged, the printers changed to a higher quality rag content paper

and the quality of the printing was improved. The pages were no longer

sewn, but folded together without binding.

 

1Trattner, Crusade, p. 75.

CHAPTER II

THE PUBLISHERS AND THE PROBLEM

The child labor problem was not a vital concern of Americans
until the beginning of the 20th Century. At that time, social reform
and public amelioration were popular causes and compassion for unfortun-
ate child workers ranked high in the minds of progressive reformers. The
National Child Labor Committee was organized on April 15, 1905, by forty-
six men and women who met at New York's Carnegie Hall and dedicated them-
selves to a quick campaign of abolishing child labor in America.1

Felix Adler, highly respected founder and head of the Kindergarten
and Ethical Culture Movements, and professor of sociology and political
ethics at Columbia University, was appointed chairman of the Comnittee.
Adler had served on the child labor committee in New York where he helped
introduce and pass five child labor bills in less than a year. This
legislation made New York the state with the highest child labor standards
in America.

During his seventeen years as chairman, Adler led the NCLC's
fight against child labor with research, public education, and minimum

standards for legislation in the states as his goals. "We are engaged in

a holy war having for its objective the stability of civilization as well

 

1Trattner, Crusade, p. 58.

19

20

as the welfare of children," said Adler.1

Dr. Samuel McCune Lindsay, an industrial relations expert and
former associate editor of the Annals gf_America, became one of the Com-
mittee's permanent secretaries. His personal prestige and acquaintance
with Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft lent prominence to the
Committee's initial undertakings. Lindsay later chaired the NCLC from
1923 to 1935.

The former Commissioner of Education to Puerto Rico soon estab-
lished an impressive library and bibliography of child labor articles,
information, and reports. His findings concerning state laws and
industrial and agricultural conditions were passed on to newspapers and
periodicals through annually issued reports and sporadic pamphlets dis-
cussing the child labor problem. Lindsay felt that the NCLC was a "great
moral force for the protection of children."2

The full-time general secretary for the South was Alexander J.
McKelway, Charlotte, North Carolina, minister, and editor of the fires;
byterian Standard and the Charlotte News. He became a skillful lobbyist
and dynamic reformer in the heart of the southern mill district where
child abuses were most flagrant.

Owen R. Lovejoy, another former minister, was chosen general
secretary for the North. He was an excellent public speaker and enjoyed
traveling throughout the nation, lecturing on the evils of child labor.

Lovejoy's efforts soon won him the title, "the children's statesman."3

 

1Trattner, Crusade, p. 57.

21bid.. p. 3.

31bid., p. 62.

21

In 1912, he was chosen to edit the Child Labor Bulletin, and did so quite
capably until 1926.

Several months later Homer Folks, executive secretary of the New
York State Charities Aid Association and former Commissioner of Public
Charities in New York, was appointed vice-chairman of the Committee.
Folks was chairman of the NCLC from 1935 to 1944.

Other prominent and influential charter members of the NCLC in
1904 included former President Grover Cleveland; Jane Addams and Lillian
Wald, noted humanitarians; Benjamin B. Lindsey, famed juvenile court
judge; Adolph S. Ochs, publisher of the New York Times; Clark Howell,
editor of the Atlanta Constitution; Mrs. Sarah S. Platt, president of
the General Federation of Women's Clubs; Charles W. Eliot, president of
Harvard University; John G. Brooks, president of the American Social
Science Association; and three union men, Stanley McCormick of Inter-
national Harvester; Edgar E. Clark of the Railway Conductors Union, and
J. W. Sullivan of the International Typographical Union.1

The 1900 census revealed approximately two million children at
work in the nation. Practically every state had some legislation on the
subject, but most laws were inadequate and poorly enforced if at all.
Joy E. Morgan, managing editor of the Journal of the National Education
Association, sided with the NCLC, but was not so optimistic about a
quick campaign to abolish child labor. "It will be one of the most
bitterly fought battles in American Constitutional history," said Miss

Morgan.2

 

1Trattner, Crusade, pp. 64-65.

2Johnsen, Selected Articles on Ch11d Labor, p. 269.

22

The NCLC advanced with ever-increasing momentum in its fight to
turn public sentiment against the traditions of greed and indifference
which nurtured child labor. The child-saving movement also sought to
eliminate poverty, slum housing, and inadequate educational facilities;
and to promote the establishment of continuation and night schools,
improved children's recreational facilities, and better mental and
physical health standards for children.

By the end of 1904, the Committee had achieved considerable suc-
cess. Seventeen states had adopted l4-year age limits, six had abolished
night work for children under 16 years of age, and two states had adopted

1 In most other states, child labor law reform was a

an eight-hour day.
much-discussed topic, but legislators needed further prodding from the
NCLC and concerned local citizens. New York, Illinois, and Massachusetts
were considerably ahead of the rest of the nation concerning the protec-
tion of child workers. A preliminary model child labor bill, drafted by
the Committee, combined the best features of these states' laws.

The standards envisioned for working children included a minimum
age of 14, a 16-year age minimum for workers in mines and quarries, an
eight—hour day, no night work between the hours of 7 p.m. and 6 a.m., and
documented proof of age on working permits. By 1914, only nine states
met all these standards.2

Southern states were prime offenders in the exploitation of child

workers. The four leading textile-producing states had the lowest

 

1Grace Abbott, "Looking Fore and Aft in Child Labor," The Survey
Magazine, December 15, 1929, p. 333.

2Bremner, From the Depths, p. 219.

23

standards in the nation. Georgia had no age limit for children in
industry. In Alabama and North and South Carolina, the age limit was 12.
Alabama and North Carolina permitted a 66-hour maximum work week, Georgia
had no hours regulation. South Carolina was the only one of the four
states which prohibited night work for children under 12.1

"It confuses our sense of value, so that we come to think that a
bolt of cheap cotton is more to be prized than a child properly nourished,
educated, and prepared to take his place in life," said reformer Jane
Addams.2

On February 21, 1907, the NCLC was incorporated by a special act
of Congress. Adler thought that this would prove that the Committee was
non-sectional in aim and support. The federal charter gave a national
stamp of approval to Committee proceedings and officially authorized the
NCLC to help "safeguard American childhood as affected by industry and
agriculture."3

Before establishment of the Child Labor Bulletin, the NCLC
printed six million pages annually.4 Pamphlets, reports, and child labor
handbooks were liberally distributed. Requests for information poured in

from every state and some foreign countries. By 1912, the NCLC had

provided information and assistance which contributed to the passage or

 

1Trattner, Crusade, p. 79.

Bremner, From the Depths, p. 216.
National Child Labor Committee, 50th Anniversary_Report, p. 7.

#00“)

Trattner, Crusade, p. 114.

24

amendment of child labor laws in thirty-nine states.1 "In its first ten
years of work, the NCLC saw the greatest advances ever achieved in the
adoption of state laws on child labor," said Frank J. Bruno in his book
Irgng§.jn_Social Work.2

Among those who supported the NCLC were the American Federation
of Labor, the NEA, the National Consumer's League, the American Associ-
ation for Labor, the NAACP, the Masons, the Pure Food and Drug Association,
the League of Women Voters, the International Child Welfare League, the
Children's Bureau, the American Bar Association, the American Medical
Association, and the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America.

The NCLC discovered many causes for the deplorable conditions
under which children worked. According to Adler, child labor was always
the by-product of the change from agriculture to industry. He called
child labor the "seamy side of efficiency," pleading for industry to
respect the human factor in children. "Child labor has no place in a
democracy." said Adler.3

Alexander McKelway maintained that children should not be denied
their moral right to education and free development under normal condi-
tions of childhood. "The manufacturer too often, the parent nearly
always, and sometimes the child is on the side of the mill," said

McKelway.4

 

1Trattner, Crusade, p. 114.

2Frank J. Bruno, Trends in_$ocial Work (New York, 1948), p. 164.

3"War, Revolution, and Child Labor," The Survengagazine, March 31,
1917. p. 1.

4Max H. Wilensky, "The Child Labor Situation," Forum, March 1917,
p. 318.

25

Owen R. Lovejoy, editor of the American Child, saw the causes for

child labor as ignorance and short-sighted individualism.

The scattered attacks made against the exploitation of
children are gathering in one concerted drive and the
beginning of the real battle is in sight. The territory of
childhood is the prize.1

Raymond G. Fuller, managing editor of the American Chilg, saw a
need for social vision and a clearer conception of the child labor evil
and objectives of reform. "The evil of child labor is not to be measured
wholly in terms of what it does to some child, but measured in terms of
what society ought to do for the child."2 Every issue of the American
glfljg_included vehement denials of any beneficial effects of child labor
without proper direction and supervision. "Child labor, where ever it
exists, from the point of view of civilization, or national progress and
humanity, is intolerable."3

A New York Times article, reprinted in School and Society magazine,
summed up the causes of child labor.

Poverty is the cause. Parents, employers, and the public

generally are blind to the real effects of child labor and to
the value of the right kinds of work and play.4
The work of the NCLC was commended by sympathetic periodicals.

Cosmopolitan formed a child labor federation with the slogan "Child Labor

1Owen R. Lovejoy, "What Remains of Child Labor," The New Republic,
November 11, 1916, p. 39.

2Raymond G. Fuller, "The Psychological Approach to the Child
Labor Problem," American Child, August 1920, p. 119.

 

 

3"The High Cost of Child.Labor," American Child. February 1915.
p. 43.

4"The Increase of Child Labor," School and SocieIY. September 8.
1923, p. 296.

26

Must Go," the Woman's Home Companion sponsored an Anti-Child Slavery
League which was absorbed in 1906 by the Committee.1 School and Society
praised the Committee's work saying, "Few lines of social endeavor can

show such a record."2 In August 1915, the Journal gf_Home Economics

 

urged all home economists to secure facts from the NCLC and then write
to their state representatives to protest local child labor conditions.3
The federal government was generally concerned over the child
labor problem, although progress was always slow. The NCLC campaigned
for six years for federal establishment of a Children's Bureau in the
Department of Labor to "report on all matters pertaining to the welfare
of children and child life."4
A 1910 U. S. Department of Labor Repg§t_gn_the Conditions of_
Woman and Child Wage Earners pointed out the need for better child labor
standards and supported the NCLC in its campaign for establishment of
the Children's Bureau. When the report was finally published, only four-
teen volumes were printed and the 2,000 c0pies which were released

5 Legislators often

remained in the hands of Senators and Congressmen.
suppressed the facts because of the influence of powerful industrial

and agricultural lobbies in their states. People began to wonder if

 

1Trattner, Crusade, p. 243.

2"Child Labor Conditions," School and Society, July 6, 1929,;n 13.

3Frederick G. Bonser, "The Home and Child Labor," Journal of
Home Economics, August 1915, p. 371.

4Edwin Markham, Benjamin B. Lindsey, and George Creel, Children
jn_Bondage (New York, 1969), p. 397.

5Ibid., p. 22.

27

the NCLC's child labor hubbub was the work of muckrakers, professional
agitators, and maudlin sentimentalists. State child labor committee re-
ports often minimized the situation, fearing charges of sensationalism by
those ignorant of the shocking reality of child labor abuse.

White House Conferences on dependent children and child welfare
were held in 1909, 1919, and 1929. The first conference was organized
by NCLC Vice-chairman Homer Folks and delegates united to campaign for

1 The second conference was sponsored by

the proposed Children's Bureau.
the Children's Bureau and stressed state aid to needy children. With the
assistance of the NCLC, a resolution was drafted to forbid child labor

2 The

under the age of 14, and night child labor under the age of 18.
third conference came at the time of the NCLC's twenty-fifth anniversary
celebration and several members of the Committee spoke before the dele-
gates. Praise for the work of the NCLC was abundant.

Although child labor was a debated topic at all three conferences,
the meetings generally did little more than help publicize the cause of
reform. Before the first conference, Lovejoy predicted that "child labor
is the only subject on which there will be an array of interests opposed
to the practical measures designed to protect children."3

The work of the NCLC, neither imaginative nor dramatic, encountered

numerous obstacles from parents, industrialists, and an apathetic public.

 

1Bremner, From the Depths, p. 222.

 

2Beatrice McConnell, Child Labor: 1912 tg_1937 (Washington, D.C.,
1937), p. 2.

3"Adults Idle as Children Labor," The Literary Digest, January 11.
1930, p. 14.

 

28

Higher standards and more scientific administration of laws were basic
goals of the reform movement. The Committee unhappily realized that the
American public evidenced "a deliberate refusal to know what may be easily
learned, or worse, a deliberate but somewhat skillful evasion of the main

question by pretending not to know."1

 

1"Two Conceptions of Child Employment," Child Labor Bulletin.
May 1916, p. 52.

CHAPTER III

' IEE_AMEB£§AN_§HILQ}S BATTLE FOR LEGISLATION

One of the chief objectives of child labor reformers was a fed-
eral law which would eliminate the inconsistency and diversity in state
laws and provide for universal enforcement of standards. The American
ghjlg_pursued a vigorous campaign to marshall public support of a federal
law.

The American Child offered literature and assistance to organiza-
tions and state child labor committees in an effort to win converts to
its cause. "Legislation to be effective must express the collective will
of the people, not idealism or self-centered commercialism," said Editor
Lovejoy.1

In November 1906, Senator Albert J. Beveridge of Indiana appeared
before the NCLC for support of a federal bill. Said Beveridge,

We cannot thus (through child labor) wreck the future of the
American Republic. We have not any right to permit any state
to produce in this Republic a degenerate class unfit for
citizenship.2 ‘

In December, Beveridge introduced a child labor bi11,which incor-

porated the NCLC's standards, in the Senate. The typical reaction was

 

1Edna D. Bullock, comp., DebaterS' Handbook Series: Selected
Articles gn_Child Labor (Minneapolis, 1963), p. 81.

2Trattner, Crusade, p. 87; and Markham, Lindsey, and Creel,
Bondage, p. 330.

29

30

that federal intervention was unconstitutional. Organized labor was

opposed to child labor, but saw federal regulation as a dangerous prece-

dent for governmental interference with labor.1
Dr. Lindsay, a permanent secretary of the NCLC, later reprimanded

the government in the Child Labor Bulletin, saying, "Congress is entirely

 

too unconcerned and too little informed as to the possibilities involved
in the aid which the government might give to those engaged in the work
of education and child welfare."2

The Child Labor Bulletin strongly favored federal legislation,

 

saying, "A federal law is necessary to the ultimate abolition of child
labor and it took twelve years of work by the NCLC to pave the way for
it."3 Reports in the magazine began to include lobbying activities in
state legislatures and accounts of local legislative reform movements
early in 1915.

Southern cotton mill owners who employed more child laborers
than any other industry were the backbone of resistance. The Beveridge
Bill was delayed for eight years by manufacturers, who reaped the bene-
fits of child labor by counter-lobbying and political deception and
avoidance.

In May 1913, the NCLC had renewed its policy to seek federal

legislation. Lovejoy was chosen to draft a new bill which was pushed

 

1Trattner, Crusade, p. 89.

2"True Preparedness in Greater Protection to Childhood," Child
Labor Bulletin, May 1916, p. 11.

 

3"News Notes," Child Labor Bulletin, November 1916. p. 139.

31

even at the cost of other Committee work. The Child_Labor Bulletin con-
tinued to collect and publish information on all existing and proposed
laws relating to children. Bulletin surveys found that two-thirds of the
states had no effective enforcement of child labor laws, and only ten
states had fair systems of factory inspection in 1914. Forty thousand
children, aged 10 to 15, were at work in the cotton mills for periods of
up to seventeen hours.1

"The features of the child labor law which contemplate the pro-
tection of young persons in industry become at once hazardous to employers
of these children," wrote Miss Tracy Copp, Wisconsin industrial commis-
sioner.2

Lax enforcement was a characteristic of laws in most states. A
Bulletin survey discovered that of 115 prosecutions in Ohio factories, 72
percent of the fines were suspended or remitted. One justice of the
peace dismissed fifteen cases because of errors in warrants drawn by
himself!3

A 1915 study by Florence I Taylor, publications secretary of the
NCLC, revealed that the maximum employer fine was $1 in many states. In
Mississippi, a new factory inspector replacing an overworked state offi-
4

cial found 158 child labor law violations in eight canneries in one month.

President Woodrow Wilson thought that federal action was

 

1
2

Markham, Lindsey, and Creel, Bondage, p. 24.
Johnsen, Selected Articles, p. 227.

3"Enforcement of Child Labor Laws," Child Labor Bulletin, November
1916, p. 165.

41bid., p. 162.

32

unconstitutional, but met with Adler, McKelway, and Lovejoy of the NCLC
in February 1914, promising at least Presidential neutrality. McKelway
warned Wilson that if he failed to support legislation, it would cost him
a great deal in the election. A victory over child labor would convince
the Progressives that the Democratic party was a party of reform.1
In 1914, Representative A. Mitchell Palmer introduced a bill
which would prohibit child labor indirectly through the regulation of
interstate commerce. The measure was acclaimed in the Child Labor Bulle-
tjg_and endorsed by the NCLC, the American Federation of Labor, the
Children's Bureau, the Farmers' Education and Cooperative Union of Amer-
ica, the American Medical Association, the International Child Welfare
League, the National Consumer's Leage, the Federal Council of Churches of
Christ in America, and women's clubs, temperance unions, health associ-
ations, and both major political parties.2
Opposition was based on divergent opinions on states' rights and
constitutionality and came almost exclusively from a small group of
southern textile men. David Clark, editor of the Southern Textile Bulle-

£12; pursued a vigorous attack on the proposed legislation and accused

the Child Labor Bulletin of maligning the South. Clark and seven other

 

southern members of the National Association of Manufacturers formed an

Executive Committee of Southern Cotton Manufacturers which immediately

became a thorn in the side of the Child Labor Bulletin.3

 

1
2

Trattner, Crusade. pp. 125 and 130.
Bremner, From the Depths, p. 225.

 

3Trattner, Crusade, p. 126.

33

Reports published in the Bulletin detailing intolerable condi-
tions and illegal child employment in the South were vehemently denied
by the NAM in articles and editorials which were circulated and published

in popular magazines and newspapers. Clark told the New York Times, "I

 

have never seen a statement issued by the NCLC that did not exaggerate
conditions and tell half-truths."1
Congress adjourned before consideration of the bill and the
Bulletin prepared for another extensive campaign. Editorials were cir-
culated and published in the Chicggo Tribune, the Memphis Commercial
Appggl, the Boston Evening Transcript, the Philadelphia Ledger, the New_

York Tribune, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the Kansas City Post, and
2

 

 

the San Francisco Call. At the February NCLC conference, Bishop Edwin

 

H. Hughes of San Francisco reminded delegates, “It takes a 20-mile wind
of popular opinion to drive a legislative ship 10 miles."3
In 1915, the Bulletin sent press notices promoting the bill to
1,250 newspapers. Ads advocating federal legislation were published in
every issue along with appeals for readers to write to their legislators.
Thirteen pamphlets, four appeal leaflets, and 15,000 copies of the bill

were circulated by the staff during the year.4

David Clark continued to accuse the Bulletin of a "busybody

 

1"Denies Child Labor Tales," New York Times, Jan. 7. 1915. P- 10-
2Trattner, Crusade. p. 127.

3"Annual Proceedings, part 11," Child Labor Bulletin, August
1915, p. 99.

4"Annual Report of the Secretary," Child Labor Bulletin, November
1915. p. 150.

 

34

attitude" toward conditions which were none of its affairs. The Honorable
J. J. Britt, representative of the 10th Congressional District in North
Carolina, wrote to the editors, "Congress can't regulate manufacturing
and the bill is unhumanitarian because it throws children out of their
jobs and provides nothing for them to do." The Bulletin printed a Lite
magazine cartoon of a young girl happily telling her mother, "That means
it will be against the law for me to wipe dishes, doesn't it, mother."1
Owen Lovejoy and other NCLC members toured the country pleading
for public support. Lovejoy maintained, "The right of the child to exemp-
tion from labor must be admitted by society before the third right of
childhood can be recognized, the right to adequate preparation for
citizenship."2
The much-delayed legislation was finally adopted in September
1916. The Owen-Keating Bill provided that no child under 14 should work
in a factory, mill, workshop, or cannery in the United States whose pro-
ducts were shipped in interstate commerce. Children under age 16 were
I forbidden from work in mines and quarries. The working day for children
14 and 15 in factories could be no more than eight hours, and not between
the hours of 7 p.m. and 6 a.m. Enforcement was delegated to the Child-
ren's Bureau.3

President Wilson signed the bill "with real emotion," saying,

l'I know how long the struggle has been to secure legislation of the sort

1"Two Concepts of Child Employment." Child Labor Bulletin, May
1916. P. 54.

 

2"Effects of Child Labor on Social Standards," Child Labor
Bulletin, May 1916, p. 23.

 

3"Federal Child Labor Law." School and Society, September 1,
1917. p. 256.

 

35

and what it is going to mean to the health and vigor of the country."1

"While he was merely taking up near its end the campaign carried
on by the NCLC and reformers for years, he gave aid when it was needed,"
said the New York Herald Tribune of Wilson's political victory.2

Wilson boasted in School and Society magazine, "Every person
engaged in educational work will feel gratified that a member of the
craft was privileged to sign, as President, this charter of the children's
liberties, and that it was owing to his insistence, at least in consider-
able measure, that the bill received the attention of Congress and
became a law at this time."3

The Child Labor Bulletin and NCLC were overjoyed with the vic-

 

tory, proclaiming it the "greatest single accomplishment in the Commit-
tee's history."4 Credit was given to Lovejoy and McKelway who were
bitter over Wilson's claims. "When I see the cartoons in the MM
ngld_giving Wilson credit for the national child labor law . . . my
emotions are aroused. This reform is mine," said McKelway.5

The Bulletin geared itself to the task of helping the states cod-
ify their laws to comply with the federal legislation. "Many employers

tolerated child labor only because of the pressure of competition and are

 

1Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era (New York,
1954), p. 227.

2Trattner, Crusade, p. 132.

3"Child Labor Bill and the Schools," School and Society, Nov. 25,
1916, p. 825.

4Trattner, Crusade, p. 132.

5"News Notes," Child Labor Bulletin, November 1916, p. 141.

36

glad to be rid of the whole system," said Lovejoy.1 Even amid the cele-
bration, the Bulletin was preparing to renew its crusade--this time to
assist working children not affected by the bill. Prime offenses in this
area were found in agriculture, tenement home work, and the street trades.

The bill immediately freed 150,000 children subject to the worst
exploitation in factories and mines. The Bulletin saw the new law's
principle value as an aid to enforcement and standardization of laws in
the states. In September 1916, Bulletin researchers found twenty-eight
states with poor regulation. Twenty-eight states permitted children
under 16 to work more than eight hours. Nineteen states allowed children
under 16 to work at night. Twenty-six states had no medical requirement
for issuance of working permits, and twelve had no educational require-
ment.2

Prosecutions under the new law were highlighted in the Bulletin.
By May 1918, five violators had been found guilty and fined $100 each.3
Unfortunately, the celebrations were premature.

The villainous David Clark and his Executive Committee set out
to confound the purpose of the fledgling bill. In a highly contrived
test case, Reuben Dagenhart, represented by NAM lawyers, sued the state
of North Carolina, claiming the bill was unconstitutional. In August
1917, Judge James E. Boyd ruled against crusty Charlotte District

Attorney William C. Hammer, issUing an injunction and declaring the law

 

1"News Notes," Child Labor Bulletin. November 1916. P- 135-

2Ibid., p. T42.

3"News Notes," Child Labor Bulletin, May 1918, p. 64.

 

37

unconstitutional in his Western District.

Loud cries of protest filled the pages of the Bulletin. The
Justice Department immediately began an appeal to the Supreme Court with
the help of the Children's Bureau and the NCLC. All were confident that
the Supreme Court would reverse the decision. Newspapers and magazines
joined in protest, although many had not campaigned for the bill. "The
states should be sufficiently enlightened and conscientious to forego
the profits to be derived from child labor," said the New York Times.1

On June 3, 1918, the Supreme Court upheld Boyd's district court
decision by a close 5-4 vote. Federal intervention in state affairs was
thus considered illegal and an invasion of states' rights, "an improper
exercise of power."2

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes joined Justices McKenna, Brandeis,
and Clark in dissenting opinions. Holmes said scornfully that the Court
thought it proper to regulate strong drink, but not the "evil of prema-
ture and excessive child labor."3 He accused the Court of being "more
concerned with the technical rights of Congress than the human rights of
children."4

Professor Frederick Green of the University of Illinois told
R. G. Fuller, managing editor of the Bulletin, "This is the most impor-
tant decision any court has made for many years . . . in its effect on

child labor, and, in a sense, in its denial to the nation of the power

1

 

"A Decision Adverse to Reform," New York Times, Sept. 3, 1917, p.6.

2Bremner, From the Depths, p. 225.

3Bent, Newspaper Crusaders, p. 237.

4Trattner, Crusade, p. 137.

38

to make its will effective. The immediate results of the decision are
regrettable but may bring amendment to the Constitution and be a blessing
in disguise."1

In the South, there was loud rejoicing and many manufacturers
sent letters to the Bulletin commending Judge Boyd for his stand on
states' rights. Child laborers who had been temporarily freed from
excessive toil under abhorrent conditions went back to work.

The NCLC immediately appointed a Special Committee on Federal
Legislation to consult with experts and outline a new course of action.
Bulletin editors realized that the war emergency would result in high
wages and labor shortages which would draw even more children into indus-
try. Compulsory education and child labor laws were suspended in many
states, making further attempts at regulation impossible. Felix Frank-
furter, long-time friend of the NCLC, made sure the govenment complied
with the 1916 minimum child labor standards in war industries' employment
of children.

The president of the New York State Federation of Women's Clubs

wrote in the Child Labor Bulletin, "The end of the war must necessarily

 

bring the need of industrial readjustment, but before we ask women to
cease the work they are now doing, let us abolish child labor."2

In November 1918, a new federal Child labor law was proposed by
Senator Atlee Pomerene, an Ohio Democrat, as an amendment to the 1918

Revenue Bill. The standards again complied with those published in the

 

1R. e. Fuller, "A Quest for Constitutionality," Child Labor
Bulletin, November 1918, p. 207.

2"News Notes," Child Labor Bulletin, November 1918, p. 54.

39

Bulletin. Senator Irvine L. Lenroot wrote in the magazine, "This legis-
lation can be sustained upon its merits by a well-considered public
opinion and we need not regard it as subterfuge to reach an evil in a
constitutional way."1
In 1919, the American Child circulated 133 articles endorsing
the act which added a 10 percent tax onto commodities in the interstate
commerce of firms employing child labor. Widely circulated complimentary
issues of the shortened and revamped magazine publicized the approach of
a new attempt at legislation.
The Pomerene Amendment to the tax act was adopted in February

2

1919, with enforcement delegated to the Treasury Department. The Amer-

ican Child cautiously applauded the new legislation and continued to pub-

 

lish scrupulous data of child labor conditions in the nation. Publicity
concerning the two bills had engendered considerable public curiosity and
elicited new concern and cooperation. Wiley H. Swift, American Child
researcher and reporter, noted that both humanitarian and business con-
siderations were more and more willing to support child labor reform.
He attributed this change in attitude to the long years of public educa-
tion campaigns by the NCLC and its publication.

The American Child began to emphasize the need for increased
cooperation with school authorities to further limit child labor through
compulsory education laws. "It is not enough to shut children out of

the factory, we must also bring them into the school. The movement for

 

1"News Notes," Child Labor Bulletin, February 1919, p. 255.
2"News Notes," The American Child, May 1919, p. 8.

4O

compulsory education everywhere goes hand in hand, must go hand in hand,

1 Again, children not affected by the new

with the child labor movement."
law were a special consideration, and the agricultural situation was
chosen by Adler as the next area of concerted attack. While the American
ghjlg_was accelerating its legislative assistance program, Judge Boyd
once again considered the constitutionality of child labor legislation.
On May 2, 1919, Boyd declared the second law unconstitutional.
The Drexel Furniture Company won compensation for fines paid to J. W.
Bailey, a North Carolina internal revenue collector, for violation of
the child labor tax act. The company claimed an invalid exercise of
Congress' right to lay and collect taxes, and an invasion of states'
rights by violation of the 10th Amendment which reserves to the states
powers not delegated to the nation.2
Again the Justice Department appealed to the Supreme Court,
assuring the NCLC that the decision would be overruled. Counsel for
the government wrote in the American Child, "The statute now in question
imposes an excise tax which Congress had the power to levy and its pri-
mary object must be assumed to be the raising of revenue, although it
may operate practically to affect the employment of child labor in fac-
tories."3

Manufacturers applauded Boyd's decision agreeing that the law

was an invasion of states' rights and would result in formation of a

 

1Wilensky, "Child Labor Situation," p. 315.

2Grace Abbott, The Child and the State (Chicago, 1938), p. 469.

3"News Notes," The American Child. February 1920. P- 278°

41

costly and impracticable bureacracy. David Clark of the NAM thought it
was wrong for the government to make money on the illegal employment of

children. The American Child countered with, "The world has been enact-

 

ing child labor laws for more than 100 years and none of them were detri-
mental to the communities concerned. Opposition rests on the selfishness
of interested employers or misunderstanding and ignorance."1

Enforcement was expensive and the American Child reported that

 

in 1920, the government spent $90,000 to levy and collect fines which
amounted to only $2,380.20. "It was a loss to the government, but an
incalculable profit to the nation," wrote the editors.2

The Supreme Court declared the second federal law an unconstitu-
tional invasion of states' rights on May 15, 1922, in an 8-1 decision.

The NCLC was not surprised by the ruling and the American Child prepared

 

to work for the only course remaining, a federal amendment to the Con-

stitution. The editors said

Twice the people tried to express their will through rep-
resentation in Congress. Twice the humane and patriotic pur-
pose has fallen to naught by reason of constitutional limita-
tions set forth in decisions of the Supreme Court. Twenty-eight
state laws are below the very reasonable standards fixed by the
two acts.3

The American Child reported in detail editorial comment on the

 

decision and a possible amendment. Among the newspapers favoring

 

1Henry R. Seager, Labor and Other Economic Essays (New York,
1931), p. 397.

 

2"News from the Child welfare Field," The American Child,
November 1920, p. 201.

 

3”Amend the Constitution." The American Child, August 1922,
p. 68.

42

amendment were the New York Globe, the New York Herald Tribune, the

 

 

Washington Star, the Boston Transcript, the Denver Times, the Cleveland

 

 

Press, the San Francisco Journal, the Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News, the Jackson

 

(Miss.) Clarion, the Houston Chronicle, and the New York Times. A New_

 

York Times editorial said

 

The great campaign for improved child labor conditions
. . is aiming much higher. The whole problem of child labor,
its importance to health, education, and the morals of the
next generation, will be opened and attacked in a broader spir-
it and with increased vigor. After muddling around for more
than ten years with the child labor question, it would seem
that even Congress must be convinced by now that the only ade-
quate recourse is amendment to the federal Constitution.

Statesmen, social welfare agencies, organized labor, women's

groups, and health and welfare groups wrote to the American Child for

 

information regarding an amendment. In December 1922, the quarterly mag-
azine accelerated its reform campaign and changed to monthly publication.
The two defeated bills had accomplished legislative gains in several
states and further awakened the American conscience to the evils of child
labor. Between 1917 and 1922, the eight-hour day was adopted in eleven
states and by 1922, twenty-three states had improved compulsory school
attendance laws.2 The 1920 census, as reported in the American Child,

showed 1,060,585 children, 10 to T5, at work.3

 

1"Editorial Comment on the Child Labor Decision," The American
Child, August 1922, p. 91.

 

2John R. Commons, A_History ngLabour jh_the United States (New
York, 1918), p. 452.

3"Members Attention!" The American Child. January 1925. P- 7-

43

Following the Bailey decision, Samuel Gompers organized a Perma-
nent Conference for the Abolition of Child Labor. Delegates representing
twenty-five national groups attended a Conference meeting in 1922 and
selected a ten-member legislative steering committee to draft an amend-

ment proposal. American Child Editor Lovejoy and staff writers Grace
1

 

Abbott and Florence Kelley headed the committee.
With the aid of the steering committee, Edward P. Costigan, a
member of the U. S. Tariff Commission, wrote the draft of a bill which
was introduced in the Senate in 1922. The proposed Children's Amendment
provided for the following:
1. Congress shall have the power to prohibit the labor of persons
under the age of 18 years and to prescribe the conditions of such labor.
2. The reserved power of the several states to legislate with
reference to the labor of persons under 18 years of age shall not be
impaired or diminished except to the extent necessary to give effect to
legislation enacted by Congress.2
The latter clause was added to appease those who were apprehen-
sive over states' rights. Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover, Senator

Henry Cabot Lodge, and President Harding voiced support to American Child

 

editors. The President accepted an honorary membership in the NCLC in
1922 and his death in 1923 was mourned in the pages of its magazine.
Early in 1923, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary considered

several proposed versions of the amendment. One entire morning session

 

1
p. 34.
2

Clarke A. Chambers, Seedtime 9f Reform (Minneapolis, 1963),

Johnsen, Selected Articles, p. 4.

44

was given over to Grace Abbott, NCLC trustee and new head of the Child-

ren's Bureau. Florence Kelley and Owen R. Lovejoy of the American Child

 

spoke to Senators in the afternoon.1 "We will have to combat disbelief,
indifference, and the opposition of business and agriculture," said Love-
joy. Congressional discussion filled more than 100 pages of the Record.2

In 1923, the American Child listed four reasons for the continu-

 

ation of child labor in America: (1) It was profitable to child exploit-
ers; (2) Children were attracted by the lure of wages; (3) The educational
system remained in a fossilized condition; and (4) Americans still per-
mitted it.3
In the height of the amendment campaign, American Child staffers

1 The majority

collected 5,000 clippings from the media every week.
included information, commentary, and reprints from the magazine. Most
popular magazines campaigned for the legislation, but newspapers were not

so vocal. Arthur Robb, editor of Editor and Publisher, claimed in his

 

column, "Shop Talk at 30," that "some of the counter-lobbying by news-
papers against the amendment, based upon theory rather than fact, has

done the newspaper cause more harm than good."5 The American Child

 

reported only 130 newspapers in favor.6

 

1"News Notes," The American Child, February 1923, p. 1.

2Chambers, Seedtime, p. 44.

3”Four Reasons," The American Child. November 1923. P. 7.

 

4npubiicity," The American Child, November 1925, p. 2.

5Bent, Newtpeper Crusaders, p. 239.

 

6"Child Labor Amendment Favored," The American Child, October
1923, p. l.

 

45

The brunt of amendment publicity was accomplished through the

efforts of the American Child and child labor committees. National organ-

 

izations were adamant in their support and wrote for information to aid

in local campaigning. In 1923, the American Child distributed 226,652

 

pieces of literature advocating amendment. The magazine's circulation
1

was 12,500.
A joint resolution was enacted by Congress in 1924, proposing an
amendment to the Constitution to permit federal regulation of child labor°
This resolution was sponsored by the NCLC and endorsed by the American
Federation of Labor and both major political parties. The resolution was
passed in the House on April 29, 1924, by a vote of 297 to 69, and in the
Senate on June 2, 1924, by a vote of 61 to 23, 5 more than the necessary

two-thirds.2

Ratification by thirty-six states was needed for passage of
the amendment.

Reformers throughout the nation joined the American Child in the

 

victory celebrations and staffers excitedly prepared to campaign in the
states. Three-fourths of the states' legislatures would meet in 1925. No
one foresaw the vicious anti-amendment campaign which was being prepared
by manufacturers and foes of the legislation. "The friends of the amend-
ment were totally unprepared to combat the flood of distorted propaganda
which was let loose upon them. They suddenly found themselves compelled
to discuss a matter of public policy with a monstrous jazz band," said

the New Republic.2

 

 

1"Publicity," The American Child, January 1924. P- 7.

2National Child Labor Committee, 50th Anniversa:y_Report, p. 2.

 

3Trattner, Crusade, p. 170.

46

 

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47

Most Americans were fearful and suspicious of the further exten-
sion of federal authority. Wartime regulations and the Prohibition and
Suffrage Amendments had taken their'toll. "They'have taken our women away
from us by constitutional amendment, they have taken our liquor away from
us, and now they want to take our children." wrote a Southern legislator

in the American Child.1

 

The widespread fear of Communism helped stigmatize the amendment

as a subversive move to nationalize children. The Woman Patriot,magazine

 

of the Anti-Suffragists, called the amendment, "a straight Socialist

"2

measure promoted under direct orders from Moscow. The NAM'S Manufac-

turers' Record said legislation was unChristian and contrary to God's

 

law. "The proposed amendment is fathered by Socialists, Communists, and
Bolshevists," said its editors.3 The Catholic Church opposed legisla-
tion because "it would destroy parental control over children." The

Farm Journal said it would destroy the home, and the Sentinels of the

 

Republic predicted that the child would become the property of the national

government.4

The American Child received and reprinted a barrage of letters

 

and telegrams from concerned citizens and groups. The NCLC formed a

speaker's bureau and its magazine fought for the amendment with articles

 

1"News Notes," The American Child, April 1925. p. 6.

2Trattner, Crusade, p. 172.

3lbid., p. 173.

4Josephine Goldmark, Impatient Crusader: Florence Kelley's Life
Story (Urbana, Ill., 1953), p. 188; Chambers, Seedtime, p. 39; and
Commons, History gf_Labour, p. 445.

 

48

explaining the issues and answering questions and accusations with facts
and figures. A semi-weekly news service offered editorials and articles
to 800 friendly or neutral newspapers.1 A running battle with the NAM
made for entertaining reading in almost every issue of the magazine in
1924 and 1925.

The NAM pursued a bitter propaganda campaign, misrepresenting the
amendment's history, terms and purpose. Manufacturers said it would make
children the devil's workshop and was "the greatest thing ever done in
America in behalf of the activities of Hell."2 The American Child re-
sponded with documented evidence of the child labor problem and commen-
tary from concerned authorities. "The most active opponents of the
amendment confine their energies to the publication of false statements
which are not based on facts or sound arguments," wrote William Draper

Lewis, director of the American Law Institute, in the American Child.3

 

News from the states, dutifully printed in every issue of the
magazine, was discouraging. Massachusetts rejected the amendment in
November, 1924, and was followed by Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina,
Oklahoma, Texas, and Georgia in January 1925. During the summer of 1925,
the staff realized that it was impractical to expect ratification in the
near future. Three times as many states rejected as adopted the amend-

ment.

 

1Trattner, Crusade, p. 175.

2Abbott, Child and State, p. 546.

3"A Lawyer's View of the Child Labor Amendment,” The American
Child, December 1924, p. 1.

 

49

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Amemze: cuemv
e_-eeweeoa NN-eoeoonom

50

The American Child's circulation peaked at 14,000 in 1925. The

 

special press service, extended to 1,300 newspapers, was faring poorly as
interest in the amendment waned. Reasons for public apathy, as seen by
the staff, included a post-war slump in idealism, lack of faith in federal
regulation, and American conservatism. The final blow came in February
1926 when Editor Lovejoy resigned from the magazine and as NCLC secretary.
He was replaced by acting secretary Wiley H. Swift and Gertrude Folks

Zimand became the new editor of the American Child.

 

Letters of appreciation for Lovejoy's work and tenacity filled

the pages of American Child issues in March, April, and May of 1926.

 

Writers who praised the editor included Walter Lippmann, chief editorial

writer for the New York World; John Dewey, professor at Columbia Univer-

 

sity; Paul Kellogg. editor of The Survey Magazine; Kenyon L. Butterfield,

 

president of Michigan State College; Bruce Bliven, editor of the New_
Republic; and Grace Abbott, head of the Children's Bureau.1 Lovejoy was
elected secretary of the Children's Aid Society in 1929. The crusading
spirit never left him.

Ratification by the states was slow in coming. The 1926 census
showed close to a million children still at work. The most significant

decreases won by the American Child were recorded between 1915 and 1920.

 

During this time, the number of child workers decreased from two million
to about one million. In 1920, the total number of working children was
1,060,858. The total had decreased to about 700,000 by 1930.

The foundering American Child issued a special December 1928

 

 

1"Letters," The American Child. MaCCh. April, and May 1925-

 

51

Christmas edition, printed all in green. Nothing seemed to spur the
lagging circulation or to reawaken the apathetic public. Between 1925
and 1931, the magazine lost almost 4,000 subscribers, and in April 1932,
the eight-page issues were reduced to four to conserve funds for the long
battle still ahead. Members gave up their complimentary issues in defer-
ence to paying subscribers.
In a March 1925 issue, NCLC Treasurer V. Everit Macy pleaded for
public support on page one.
If a federal law must be delayed, children in backward
states need protection now more than ever. The intensive work
of the last few months has reduced our funds very low--we must

be prepared to answer any calls for our services in the states.
Will you contribute for this work?

This ad was followed by an NCLC membership application.

The national tragedy in 1929 regenerated some interest in child
labor reform. The tide of favorable reaction caused by the Depression
surprised and delighted American Child staffers. The public wanted more
children kept at school and prevented from competing with twelve million
unemployed adults for scarce jobs. The Depression brought collective
economic concern and idled one third of the nation's child workers.

In 1933, eight more states ratified the child labor amendment,
and by 1938 the number had grown to twenty-eight. The June 1933 National
Recovery Act temporarily barred 100,000 children from industry. Pres-

ident Roosevelt wrote to the American Child, expressing hope that this

 

trend could be continued.

A 1935 American Child survey found thirty-eight states with the

 

minimum standard of a fourteen-year age limit for children in factories

and mills. Six states had a fifteen-year limit, seven a sixteen-year

52

limit, and one had no age limit. Forty-two states had established an

eight-hour day.1

Such successes kept the staff diligently at work des-
pite the meager progress of amendment ratification.

The 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act set child labor and wages and
hour standards for workers "in interstate commerce" and overruled the
Hammer v. Dagenhart decision of 1918 which had barred the federal govern-
ment from interfering in such matters of states' rights. This act elim-
inated many thousands of child workers by forbidding children under 16
in covered employment and under 18 in occupations declared hazardous by
the Children's Bureau. The catch phrase "covered employment" set many
Child workers outside coverage of the act. Those not protected were
children who worked on farms, in local establishments, on the streets,

2

and minors between the ages of 16 and 18.

The American Child would see no appreciable results until 1941,

 

when the Fair Labor Standards Act was upheld by the Supreme Court. After
that year, large numbers of children were protected by new laws concern-

3 The

ing age limits, school hours, and hazardous occupation definitions.
ten states needed for ratification had not yet been reached when the

American Child ceased publication in 1966 with its forty-eighth volume.

 

 

1George B. Mangold, Problems gf_Child Welfare (New York, 1936),
p. 336.

2

 

Green, A_Primer, p. 12.

3”Child Welfare," Encyclgpedia gf_History, 1967, IV, p. 755.

CHAPTER IV

IMPACT AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS

The Publishers

The National Child Labor Committee was the most vocal and adamant
crusader against child labor in America's history. The American Child,
the organization's official publication, became the outstanding organ for
child labor reform, influencing millions of Americans and helping every
state enact or improve its child labor laws. Publicity was the most vital
tool of reformers, and this was the magazine's chief resource. "Parents,
employers, and the public were generally blind to the real effects of
child labor and to the value of education and the right kinds of work

and play," wrote the editors of School and Society_magazine.1

 

The NCLC was a respected and widely acclaimed organization. Two
years after its formation, the NCLC was given credit for the proposed
Beveridge Bill, introduced in the Senate in 1906. "The bill is the fruit
of a prolonged and very earnest agitation by an organization expressly
devoted to that purpose and aided by most of the active charitable

associations," wrote the New York Times.2

 

 

1"The Increase of Child Labor," School and Society, September 8,
1923, p. 296.

 

2”The New Child Labor Law," New York Times, October 2. 1906.

 

53

54

Also in 1906, Florence Kelley, a trustee of the NCLC, had enlisted
President Roosevelt's aid in the formation of a federal Children's Bureau,
"to report on all matters pertaining to the welfare of children and child
life."1 For six years, the NCLC waged a massive and expensive campaign
promoting establishment of the Bureau and in 1912, the new Bureau joined
the NCLC in research and publication of child labor information. "Every
dollar spent by the Children's Bureau is a dollar invested in aiding
those who . . . are contributing their share to upbuilding intelligence

and physical strength," wrote the Child Labor Bulletin.2

 

The U. S. Department of Labor utilized NCLC data in production of
its monumental _p___Re ort 99. the. Conditions of. lichen 999 ___Child liege Earners.3
Copies went to legislators and a 1910 Congressional committee considering

establishment of the Children's Bureau examined the child labor problem.

The country ought to know how the labor of children is being
regulated, what occupations are especially dangerous or in-
jurious physically or morally, at what ages children should

be allowed to enter the army of breadwinners, and what restric-
tions should be thrown around them . . . what is the general
effect of premature toil.4

The NCLC was eager to answer the Congressmen's questions. Homer
Folks, vice-chairman of the Committee, organized the 1909 White House

Conference on Dependent Children, setting a precedent for NCLC support

 

1Markham, Lindsey, and Creel, Bondage, p. 397.

2"True Preparedness in Greater Protection to Childhood," Child
Labor Bulletin, May 1916, p. 12. .

3Markham, Lindsey, and Creel, Bondage, p. 20.

4McConnell, Child Labor, 1912 _t_g 1937, p. l.

 

55

of conferences held in 1919 and 1929. Child labor was a debated topic at
all three conferences.

Various national organizations applauded the NCLC's entry into
the field of child welfare reform. The National Consumer's League issued
a handbook on child labor laws and celebrated the Committee's formation
in 1904. Secretary Florence Kelley incessantly urged consumers to boy-
cott goods manufactered by illegal child workers and to consult the NCLC
for child labor information. The League predicted that the NCLC would

arouse violent hostility in the stronghold of child labor.1

The League
later saluted Florence Kelley, Alexander McKelway, and Owen R. Lovejoy of
the NCLC as three crusaders who provided courageous leadership in the
campaign to save the children.2 Child labor reform had succeeded to some
extent in thirty-eight states by 1914.

The American Bar Association, Chicago Vice Commission, Internation-
al Child Welfare League, American Federation of Labor, National Education
Association, and various reform and child welfare groups endorsed a model
child labor bill drawn up by the NCLC in 1904. This bill was used as a
base for Beveridge's 1906 child labor bill.

"The NCLC can remove the difficulty arising from the diversity of
state laws. The model law drafted in 1904 could do much to remove the

worst evils of the child labor problem if adopted by all the states,"

wrote Benjamin DeWitt in The Progressive Movement.3

 

1

2Ibid., p. 161.

Goldmark, Kelley, p. 92.

3Benjamin P. DeWitt, The Prggressive Movement (New York, 1915),

 

p. 248.

56

The New York Times hailed the new organization in 1904. “The

 

NCLC was organized to supervise the actions of child labor committees in
all parts of the country, and to prevent in the states the sacrifice of
child life which has characterized some of the older industrial commun-
ities."1

National magazines began to publicize the reform crusade.

Between 1897 and 1901, Poole's Index t9_Periodical Literature listed

 

only four articles on child labor. Between 1902 and 1906, sixty-nine

2

related articles were added. In 1904, discussions of the problem were

found in McClures', The Independent, The Outlook, the Saturdanyvening

Post, and Cosmopolitan.3

By 1909, twenty-seven state and local child labor committees were

4 Contribu-

working in conjunction with the NCLC's five thousand members.
tions climbed from $13,500 in 1904 to $60,000 in 1912. Printed material
distributed by the Committee increased from two to six million pages

5 The demand for more information resulted in the

annually by 1912.
advent of the NCLC's child labor magazine, the Child Labor Bulletin, in
1912. In 1919, the magazine was renamed The American Child and altered

to appeal to the more casual reader.

 

1"A Suggested Organization," New York Times. April 23. 1904.
p. 10.

2Commons, History 9f_Labour, p. 408.
3Trattner, Crusade, p. 48.
4Ibid.. p. 75.

5Ibid., p. 114.

57

"I want to congratulate the NCLC upon the American Child, which

 

is full of illuminating material in the field of child welfare. It fills
a unique place," wrote Hastings H. Hart, director of the Child-Helping
Department of the Russell Sage Foundation, a philanthropic organization.1
Editors of The Survey Magazine and The Literary Digest wrote to
Editor Lovejoy that their staffs regularly scanned the pages of the mag-
azine for "newsy, interesting, fresh, and scrupulously accurate" informa-
tion. Reprints were soon found in almost every national magazine, and

child-helping organizations pointed to NCLC studies and statistics pub-

lished in the Child Labor Bulletin. More and more libraries began to

 

subscribe, 300 kept files in 1921.2 State child labor committees wrote
to the staff requesting information on child labor surveys in their
states. Edward N. Clopper, Bulletin reporter, conducted an extensive

study of New York tenement workers and published a book, Child Labor jh_

 

City Streets, in 1913.

Historian Arthur S. Link notes that by 1913, the more radical
progressives dedicated to the cause of social justice were clearly dis-
tinguishable. Among these he listed the American Association for Labor
Legislation, the Consumer's Leage, and the NCLC.3

"The NCLC carried its educational program into every state in an

untiring fight for better legislation. It sought to educate the public

through investigation and publication of child labor conditions," wrote

 

1"Shop Talk," The American Child. February 1921. p. 369.
2"Annual Report of the Secretary." The American Child. November
1921. P. 224.

3Link, Woodrow Wilson, p. 54.

 

58

George B. Mangold in Problems gf_Child Welfare.1

"The NCLC has grown in membership and efficiency, advancing with
ever increasing momentum against the phalanx of tradition, indifference,
and greed. The Committee is successful beyond anticipation in securing
improved laws and methods of enforcement," wrote Judge Benjamin B. Lind-
sey in Children jh_Bondage. He called the successes won with inadequate
funds remarkable as crusader Lovejoy continued to sound the call for

volunteers in the Child Labor Bulletin.2 Clarke A. Chambers, author of

 

Seedtime 9f_Reform, called Lovejoy "one of the unsung heroes of social
work."3
"The NCLC stimulated surveys of the inhuman working conditions of

children and charged public opinion toward regulatory legislation, wrote

the editors of Work, Youth, and Unemployment.4
According to the Ahhgl§_9f_America, the "NCLC, led by prominent

liberals such as Felix Adler and Jane Addams, publicized the distressing

conditions under which children worked and the unhealthy effects long

"5 Before 1912, NCLC reports and accounts

working hours had on the young.
of annual conferences were published in the Annals.
NCLC conferences, dutifully reported in the Child Labor Bulletin,

attracted prominent Americans as participants and delegates, and were

 

1Mangold, Problems, p. 329.

2Markham, Lindsey, and Creel, Bondage, p. 9.
3Trattner, Crusade, p. 101.

4Melvin Herman, Stanley Sodofsky, and Bernard Rosenberg, eds.,
Work, Youth, and Unemployment (New York, 1968), p. 81.

 

5"Obstacles to Enforcing Child Labor Laws," The Annals gj_America.
Vol. 13, 1968, p. 85.

 

59

well-attended and publicized. Among those who often attended were New
York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt; Justice Felix Frankfurter; Herbert
Hoover, Secretary of Commerce; Samuel Gompers, president of the American
Federation of Labor; James J. Davis, U. S. Secretary of Labor; Heywood

Hale Broun of the New York World; and an unending list of social workers,

 

legislators, educators, and those interested in child labor reform.

The NCLC was instrumental in the formation of the National Child
Health Organization in 1918. This group fought for improved child
health and stressed better child nutrition through a vast campaign in
the schools. The NCLC also founded the Committee on National Aid to
Education and assisted this group in a successful effort to pass the
1917 Smith-Hughes Act which made $1 million available annually to the
schools for improved vocational programs. It was affiliated with the
Children's Bureau, National Consumer's League, the Federal Council of
Churches, National Information Bureau, National Council of Rural Agencies,
Permanent Conference for the Abolition of Child Labor, and hundreds of
child labor committees throughout the nation.

Child labor day, the creation of the NCLC, was held on the last
Sunday of every January and was observed in many communities. "More than
8,000 organizations wrote to the Child Labor Bulletin for material to

1 Announce- .

observe child labor day," wrote the New York Times in 1916.
ments of child labor days were found in the majority of the nation's

newspapers.

 

1”Sunday is Child Labor Day," New York Times, January 21. 1916,
p. 20.

60

Another measure of the NCLC's success is the extent and vehemence
of its opposition. The Sentinels of the Republic, a group opposing cen-
tralization in the federal government, was formed in 1922 as a reaction

to the proposed child labor amendment. The NAM and its Manufacturers'

 

New§.and the Southern Textile Bulletin waged violent campaigns against
the NCLC and its magazine. The Farmers' States' Rights League, a fic-
titious organization exposed by the American Federation of Labor, was
sponsored by the NAM and flooded newspapers with ads denouncing the pro-
posed federal legislation. Others who opposed the bill and wrote criti-
cal letters to the nation's newspapers and magazines included farmers,
Catholic church members, and states' rights champions. The NAM lobbied
in every state legislature and tried to mislead the gullible public with
false and unfounded arguments.

The NCLC had its own avenues of publicity and responded in kind.
"Through letter and lecture, pamphlet, newspaper, and magazine story,
exhibit and slide, we have endeavored to bring the story of the laboring
child close to the hearts of men," asserted the Committee in its §h11g_
Labor Bulletin.1

The response from the public was not always adverse. In 1915,
the Detroit Employers' Association wrote to the Bulletin, requesting
NCLC testimony concerning the economy of eliminating children from

industry.2

 

1"The Citizen and the NCLC," Child Labor Bulletin. May 1916,
p. 36.

2"Employers Campaigning Against Child Labor," The Survengagazine,
May 8, 1915, p. 130.

61

The national secretary of the YMCA wrote and requested slides

1 In

illustrating child labor to show at Army camp meetings in 1918.
1923, Colonel John T. Axton, chief of the chaplains of the Army, obtained
NCLC child labor material which he sent to each of the 175 Army chaplains
to help solicit donations for child labor reform.2

Children's essay contests were sponsored in the nation's schools,
with winning child labor essays contributed to the Bulletin's editors.
"The Proposed Child Labor Amendment," a chapter in Henry R. Seager's

Labor and Other Economic E5§eys, consisted of answers to an NCLC request

 

for expressions of opinion from various professional groups. The consen-
sus was "Of course I am in favor of amendment. Only through legislation
can children be protected and manufacturers be restrained from exploiting
children."3 I

The Foreign Automotive Association donated one day's car sales

4 Under

to the NCLC following a week-long automobile exhibit in New York.
NCLC supervision, the Typographical Union and the International Ladies'
Garment Workers' Union conducted educational and welfare work for the
apprentices in their trades.

Child labor became an international concern and the NCLC was

supported at the International Labor Conference held in Washington, D.C.,

in 1919. Its standards were accepted by the International Secretariat

 

1"Publicity," Child Labor Bulletin, November 1918, p. 166.

 

2"News Notes," Child Labor Bulletin, February 1923, p. 4.

 

3Seager, Essays, pp. 392-93.

4"News Notes," The American Child. November 1923. P- 3-

62

of the Young People's Movement and the League of Nations in 1922.1

Said the Washington Post, “The progress that has been made since
the NCLC was organized gives hope that the problem can be finally solved."
Walter Trattner, author of an NCLC history, concurred. "The NCLC left a
large constructive imprint on the whole field of child welfare and

helped release children from defenseless bondage."

The Publication

The American Child holds a unique place in the history of media

 

crusaders. By bringing together members of the NCLC, noted reformers,
social welfare workers, and experts in every field, the magazine published
a running account of the fight against the evils of child labor and poor
state legislation.

Success can be measured by the preliminary response to the mag-
azine. Although its circulation was not large, the American Child found
its way into the hands of citizens in every state and over a hundred
foreign countries in its first year of publication. The number of readers
generally equalled the number of NCLC members. In 1912, NCLC membership
was about 5,000. This grew to 12,780 in 1919, with circulation reaching
12,000. Circulation peaked in 1925 at 14,000 and had decreased along
with NCLC membership to about 10,000 by 1930.

Members of every state child labor committee read the magazine
and corresponded with Editor Lovejoy, relaying child labor successes

and defeats in their locales. American Child articles were read and

 

1Johnsen, Selected Articles, p. 4.

63

quoted by reformers, legislators, and educators in speeches and child
labor day addresses. As part of the literature of moral protest in the
early 20th Century, the American Child helped awaken the American con-
science and contributed to efforts in the wide campaign for social better-
ment. Children's aid societies and welfare organizations were created
and the juvenile court system was revised and improved. There was new
concern over the physical and mental health of the child, resulting in
the construction of parks, playgrounds, and better vocational facilities.
The magazine fought for better compulsory school attendance laws. Dr.
John Dewey, philosophy professor at Columbia University, told NCLC con-
ference delegates, "The movement for the abolition of child labor has
always been part of an educational movement."1

The 1920 census figures on school attendance published in the
American Child showed some results in the campaign for better attendance.
There was an overall increase of 4.26 percent in school attendance since
1919.2 Between 1900 and 1925, the number of children attending school
had increased fourfold, while the population of children was up only 15
percent. High school attendance rose from 10 percent in 1904 to 53 per-
cent in 1928.3

The majority of magazine articles written on child labor included

American Child data or comment. "We read your excellent magazine here

 

1"Proceedings of the Annual Conference." Child Labor Bulletin,
May 1917. p. 61.-

 

2"News from the Child Welfare Field," The American Child,
February 1922, p. 29.

 

3Chambers, Seedtime, p. 52.

64

with great interest and find its material available for quotation in our

1

columns," wrote William S. Woods, editor of The Literary_Digest. Paul

Kellogg. editor of The Survey Magazine, noted that members of his staff

 

often went foraging in the pages of the American Child because its stan-
dards of accuracy were high and it gave information about conditions
affecting children against the larger background of public welfare as a

whole.2

"According to The American Child" was a familiar phrase to the
reading public.

American Child staffers wrote innumerable articles for publica-

 

tion in national magazines. R. G. Fuller's articles were serialized in

Good Housekeeping, The Survey Magazine, and the Journal gj_Home Economics.

 

Helen C. Dwight encouraged local child labor efforts in "Child Labor in

3

Your Town," an article published in The American City, Florence Kelley

 

and Samuel McCune Lindsay were contributing editors of the Survey.

Editor Lovejoy authored "American Progress, 1620 to 1920" for The Literary
4

 

Digest.

American Child staffers conducted surveys of child labor conditions

 

in every state. Detailed reports of the findings were published in every
issue. In North Carolina, such a survey proved that underaged children

were illegally employed, resulting in new legislation to forbid child

 

1"Shop Talk," The American Child, p. 369-
2Ibid.. p. 368.

3Helen C. Dwight, "Child Labor in Your Town," The AmeriCan City,
December 1915, p. 533.

 

 

4"Child Labor," The Literary Digest, January 15. 1921. p. 40.

 

65

labor under age 13.1 Surveys also showed that child workers had greater
liability to accidents, were more prone to juvenile delinquency and
illiteracy, were less likely to attend school, and needed vocational

assistance in most cases. The American Child also pointed out that child

 

labor laws were mediocre and poorly enforced, most families were not in

dire need of children's wages, and the concern for child welfare was a

sadly neglected area of social reform. The magazine estimated that child

labor cost society $20 to $25 million per year and was part of the

vicious circle of illiteracy, poverty, disease, low wages, and bad housing.2
Many Americans responded with an enlightened interest in the

nation's children. Support for organizations such as the P.T.A. and N.E.A.

was engendered. Membership in state and local child labor committees

increased yearly until 1925. The American Child was read by members of

 

religious groups, charity organizations, child welfare agencies, and
educators throughout the nation. The Kiwanis, Big Brother and Big Sister
Organizations, and Young Men's and Women's Christian Associations reprinted

American Child articles in their publications. There were few national

 

organizations which did not utilize the many services offered by the
magazine.

"The American Child is doing a useful service in calling atten-

 

tion to the conditions of child life in some of our more neglected rural

regions, and in some of the negleCted homes . . . ," wrote Professor

Dwight Sanderson of Columbia University's College of Agriculture.3

 

1"News Notes," Child Labor Bulletin, February 1915, p. 20.
2ibid., p. 34.

3"Shop Talk," The American Child, p. 369.

 

66

A child labor handbook, published by the American Child, was

 

acclaimed as the best collection of child labor information ever
assembled.1 The staff's scrupulous regard for facts resulted in an
increasing demand for American Child reprints and survey data. In 1928,
NBC sponsored "Child Labor Talks" on radio station WJZ in New York, with

information provided by the American Child.2

 

On the NCLC's twenty-fifth anniversary in 1929, the American
thlg_printed a "25th Anniversary Souvenir Book," containing articles
by Felix Adler, Samuel McCune Lindsay, Grace Abbott, the Honorable
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Wiley H. Swift, and William John Cooper, U. S.
Commissioner of Education. The edition was widely acclaimed and circu-
lated throughout the nation as evidence of the progress made thus far in
3

the area of child labor reform.

As the popularity of child labor reform waned, American Child

 

staffers increasingly sought publicity through more widely read magazines

including the Ladies' Home Journal, The Survey Magazine, Public Health,

 

 

Current History, The Nation, The World Outlook, and the Review gf_Reviews.

 

Articles appeared in these magazines throughout 1932 and 1933. The

American Child had done its part and the brunt of publicity was now en-

trusted to those periodicals with a wider, more general circulation.
Soon, the government would step in with the National Recovery and

the Fair Labor Standards Acts of 1933 and 1938. No one could deny that

 

1Trattner, Crusade, p. 76.

2"News Notes," The American Child, January 1928, p. 4.

 

3"25th Anniversary Souvenir Book," The American Child, January
1930’ pp. 1‘7.

 

67

the American Child had provided invaluable contributions at the most

 

critical period in the history of child labor reform and preliminary
legislation.

The New York Herald-Tribune expressed the nation's gratitude in

 

1929. "(The NCLC) has plugged along for twenty-five years, winning

small victories and fighting big battles, and the sum of its achievements

1

is impressive." Joseph K. Hart, associate editor of The Survey Magazine,

urged the staff of the American Child to continue its battle. "I hope

 

that while continuing your excellent work for the protection of children
from the complications of modern industrial society, you will continue
your fine work in exploration and discovery of the still hidden meanings
of childhood itself."2

The stamina and conviction with which the staff continued its
fight against innumerable odds and public adversity is an example for
Social reformers everywhere. Even today, the American Child has not
received proper acclaim for its contribution toward rescuing the nation's

youth.

 

1"Reflections from the Press," The American Child, September
1929, p. 5.

2

 

”Shop Talk," The American Child, p. 367.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A

MINIMUM STANDARDS OF THE

NATIONAL CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE1

NO child under 14 shall be employed in any gainful occupation.

No child under 16 to be employed unless the employer gets a work
permit from the proper school official issued upon the following
conditions:

(a) A promise of employment showing the exact nature of the work.

(b) EVldence that the child is of legal age for the employment.

(c) A statement by an authorized physician showing that he finds
the Child physically fit for that particular employment.

(d) Evidence that the child has completed the 8th grade of the
public school or its equivalent. This should be waived when
the schools are not in session, a special vacation work permit
being issued.

No child under 16 to be employed for more than 8 hours a day, 6 days
or 48 hours a week, or after 7 at night or before 6 in the morning.

No child under 16 to be employed at any work in any place dangerous,
injurious or hazardous. Places and occupations known to be danger-
ous, injurious or hazardous for children under 16 should be enumer-
ated in the law--and authority should be delegated to some state
board to extend the list.

A similar provision for employment in work dangerous for children
16 to 18 years.

 

1"Child Labor Standards," The American Child, November 1927, p. 3.

 

68

APPENDIX B

SUMMARY OF LEGISLATION

THE OWEN KEATING BILL
No child under 14 shall work in a factory, mill, workshop, or
cannery in the United States whose products are shipped in inter-state
commerce. No child under 16 shall work in a mine or quarry.
The working day for children 14 and 15 in factories shall not
be more than 8 hours or not between the hours of 7 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Enforcement -- U. S. Children's Bureau

Legislation
passed House -- Feb. 2, 1916 (343 to 46)
passed Senate -- Aug. 8, 1916 (52 to 12)
adopted -- Sept. 1, 1916
effective -- Sept. 1, 1917
unconstit. -- June 3, 1918 (5 to 4)

THE POMERENE AMENDMENT
Based on the taxing power of Congress, a 10 percent tax in
excess of all other taxes shall be imposed on the net profits of all
factories, mines, etc., employing children contrary to the specific
standards laid down by the act.

Enforcement -- U. S. Treasury Department

Legislation
passed House -- Feb. 4, 1919 (310 to 11)
passed Senate -- Dec. 18, 1918 (50 to 12)
adopted -- Feb. 24, 1919
effective -- April 25, 1919
unconstit. -- May 15, 1922 (8 to l)

69

70

THE CHILDREN'S AMENDMENT
Congress shall have the power to prohibit the labor of persons
under the age of 18 years and to prescribe the conditions of such labor.
The reserved power of the several states to legislate with
reference to the labor of persons under 18 years of age shall not be
impaired or diminished except to the extent necessary to give effect to
legislation enacted by the Congress.

Legislation

passed House -- April 29, 1924 (297 to 69)
passed Senate -- June 2, 1924 (61 to 23)

FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT
1938

Forbids child labor under the age of 16 in covered employment
or under the age of 18 in occupations declared hazardous by the Children's
Bureau.

Upheld by the Supreme Court in 1941.

SOURCES CITED

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"Child Welfare." Entyclopedia 9: History. 1967. Vol. IV, 753-55.

Commons, John R. A_History 9f Labour jg_the United States. New York,
1918, Ch. II, Chi d Labour Eeglslation," pp. 403-56.

Cummins, E. E. The Labor Problem ih_the United States. New York, 1932.

 

DeWitt, Benjamin P. The Progressive Movement. New York, 1915.
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"Labor." Dictionary gf_American History. 1940. Vol. I, pp. 361-62.
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Link, Arthur S. Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1910-1917.
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Raybeck, Joseph G. A_History gf_American Labor. New York, 1959.
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Books
Abbott, Grace. The Child and the State. Vol. I, Chicago, 1938.

American Academy of Political and Social Science, The Annals 9f America.
Philadelphia, 1916 through 1928, selected volumes.

Bent, Silas. Neyepaper Crusaders. New York, 1939. pp. 231-34 and 275.
Bingham, Florence C., ed. Community Life in e_Democracy. Chicago, 1942.

71

72

Bremner, Robert H. From the Depths. New York, 1964.

 

Bullock, Edna D., comp. Debaters' Handbook Series, Selected Articles ee
Child Labor. Minneapolis, 1963.

 

Chambers, Clarke A. Seedtime gf_Reform. Minneapolis, 1963.

Cook Fred J. The Muckrakers. New York, 1972.

 

Daniels, Jonathan. They Will §e_Heard. New York, 1965.

Davenport, Walter, and Derieux, James C. Ladies, Gentlemen and Editors.
New York, 1960.

Davidson, Elizabeth H. Child Labor Legislation ie the Southern Textile
States. Durham, N.C., 1939.

Ensign, Forest C. Compulsory_School Attendance and Child Labor. New
York, 1921.

Goldmark, Josephine. Impatient Crusader: Florence Kelley's Life Story.
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Herman, Melvin; Sodofsky, Stanley; and Rosenberg, Bernard; eds. Work
Youth, and Unemployment. New York, 1968.

 

'Johnsen, Julia E., comp. Selected Articles gg_Child Labor. New York,
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Mangold, George 8. Problems 9: Child Labor. New York, 1936.

 

Markham, Edwin; Lindsey, Benjamin B.; and Creel, George. Children jg_
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Nearing, Scott. The Solution gf_the Child Labor Problem. New York,
1911.

 

Seager, Henry R. Labor and Other Economic Eseeys. New York, 1931.

Spargo, John. The Bitter Cry_gf the Children. New York, 1969.

 

Trattner, Walter I. Crusade for the Children. Chicago, 1970.
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Periodicals and Newspapers

"A Decision Adverse to Reform," editorial. New York Times, Sept. 3,
1917, p. 6.

73

"A New Campaign Against Child Labor." Outlook, Dec. 4, 1918, p. 518.

"A New Weapon Against Child Labor." The Literary Digest, Jan. 4, 1919,
p. 14.

 

"A Shocker for Our Conservatives," editorial. New York Times, Sept. 7,

1917, p. 8.

 

Abbott, Grace. "Looking Fore and Aft in Child Labor." The Survey
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-"Adults Idle as Children Labor." The Litera:y_ngest, Jan. 11, 1930,
' p. 14.

 

"American Federation of Labor Attacks Child Labor Ruling." Ne! York
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"Back to School." School and Society, Dec. 7, 1918, pp. 685-87.

 

Binsse, Henry B. "Letter to the Editor." Commonweal, Jan. 12, 1934,
p. 301.

 

Bonser, Frederick G. "The Home and Child Labor." The Journal gf_Home
Economics, August 1915. pp. 368-69 and 371-72.

"Boys and Girls at Work." The Survey Magazine, Aug. 15, 1930, p. 437.

 

"Catching Child Labor Young." The Survey_Magazine, June 19, 1915, p. 259.
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"Child Labor and the Court." New Republic, July 26, 1922, p. 250.

 

"Child Labor and the Future." New Republic, Mar. 21, 1928, pp. 150-53.

 

"Child Labor Bill and the Schools." School and Society, Nov. 25, 1916,
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"Child Labor Certificate System in Connecticut." School and Society,
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"Child Labor in the States," editorial. New York Times, Aug. 25, 1924,
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74

"Child Labor in Warring Countries." School and Society, June 2, 1917,
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"Child Labor Increasing," editorial. New York Times, Sept. 2, 1923,
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"Child Labor Laws." School and Society, Feb. 5, 1916, p. 200.

 

"Child Labor Was Not Involved," editorial. New York Times, Aug. 25, 1921,
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75

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15'. ill ..... I'll-l
Ill Ill all '1. l1 1 11 I I 1

76

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77

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Pamphlets

Children's Bureau, U. S. Department of Labor. Child Labor jn_the United
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The Community_and Child Labor. Washington, D.C., May 1930.

Trend gf_Child Labor, 1927 tg_l936. Washington, D.C., 1938.

Green, William. Child Labor: A_Primer for Trade Unions and Stugy
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- Hutchins, Grace. Children Under Capitalism. New York, 1933.

McConnell, Beatrice. Child Labor: 1912 tg_l937. Vol

. I, #9 and 10,
Washington, D.C., 1937.

National Child Labor Committee. 50th Anniversa:y_Report, The Changing
Years, 1904 tg_1954. New York, April 1954.

 

  
   
 

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