Invention

Child Labor Laws

The first factory law to protect children required inspectors because employers ignored the previous one.

United Kingdom · 1833

In the early decades of the Industrial Revolution, children as young as five worked in British textile mills, coal mines, and chimney sweeping. The 1833 Factory Act, also known as Althorp's Act, was the first British law to include an enforcement mechanism. It prohibited employment of children under nine in textile factories, limited working hours for children aged nine to thirteen to eight hours per day, and created a system of four factory inspectors to enforce compliance.1

Earlier legislation had failed. The Health and Morals of Apprentices Act of 1802 limited working hours for pauper apprentices in cotton mills to twelve hours per day, but included no inspectors and was widely ignored.2

In the United States, the first state child labor law was passed in Massachusetts in 1836, requiring children under fifteen working in factories to attend school for at least three months per year. By 1900, an estimated 1.75 million children between the ages of ten and fifteen were employed in American industry.3

1.75M

The estimated number of children aged ten to fifteen employed in American industry by 1900.

Lewis Hine, a sociologist and photographer hired by the National Child Labor Committee in 1908, documented child workers across the country. His photographs of children in mines, mills, and canneries became evidence in the campaign for federal legislation.4

The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 established the first permanent federal restrictions on child labor in the United States, setting minimum ages for employment and limiting hours for workers under sixteen.5 The International Labour Organization estimates that in 2020, 160 million children worldwide were engaged in child labor, an increase of 8.4 million from 2016.6

Timeline

1833

Britain's Factory Act prohibits employment of children under nine in textile factories and creates factory inspectors.

1900

An estimated 1.75 million American children aged ten to fifteen are employed in industry.

1908

Lewis Hine begins photographing child workers for the National Child Labor Committee.

1938

The Fair Labor Standards Act establishes the first permanent federal child labor restrictions in the United States.

Endnotes

1 Robert Hessen, "The Effects of the Industrial Revolution on Women and Children," in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, ed. Ayn Rand (New York: Penguin, 1967). Also: UK Parliament, "The 1833 Factory Act" (parliament.uk).

2 Clark Nardinelli, Child Labor and the Industrial Revolution (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990).

3 Hugh Cunningham, The Children of the Poor: Representations of Childhood Since the Seventeenth Century (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991).

4 Russell Freedman, Kids at Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade Against Child Labor (New York: Clarion Books, 1994).

5 U.S. Department of Labor, Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq.).

6 International Labour Organization and UNICEF, Child Labour: Global Estimates 2020, Trends and the Road Forward (Geneva: ILO, 2021).