Caught in the Act

May 24, 1900, Neenah Daily Times

Child labor was generally accepted, especially in the lower classes who needed their child's wages to get by.  Farm labor was always there, what with family farming, but the advent of mechanization in conjunction with factory work in the mid to late 19th century made the allure of using children to do the work, especially in textile mills, almost a necessity for the factory owners' fiscal well-being.  Creation of child labor laws became a movement in the late 19th/early 20th century.  But it wasn't until 1938 that Congress finally passed a child labor law (Fair Labor Standards Act, or FLSA) that would later be upheld by the Supreme Court.  Up until then, use of child labor had often been justified as an incentive to keep kids off the streets and it also fulfilled the Puritan work ethic that enveloped America.   But anecdotal evidence of children as young as 4 years old being employed pushed child labor activists to work even harder to get laws passed.  I wonder how young the kids at the Wooden Ware were.