Full text of Child Labor : Facts and Figures, Bureau Publication No. 197

View original document

The full text on this page is automatically extracted from the file linked above and may contain errors and inconsistencies.

♦

U N IT ED STATES DEPARTM ENT OF LABOR
C H IL D R E N ’S BU REAU

P U B LIC A TIO N No. 197

CHILD L A B O R
FACTS AND FIGURES

L I B R A R Y
Agricultural & Mechanical College of Texas
College Station, Texas.

♦

rx
t

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
FRANCES PERKINS, Secretary

CHILDREN’S BUREAU
G RACE ABBOTT. Chief

CHILD LABO R
FACTS AND FIGURES

Bureau Publication No. 197
(Revised October 1933)

U N ITE D STATES
GOVERNM ENT PR IN TIN G OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 1933

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D-C,

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Price 10 cents

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CONTENTS
Pag§

Letter of transmittal------------------------------------ ------------------ -—
—
Chapter I.— Child labor in the United States------------------------------------------------Working children under 10 years of age________________________________
Working children 10 to 17 years of age, inclusive-------------------------------Working children 10 to 13, inclusive------------------------------------------------Working children o f 14 and 15_.-------------------------------------------------------Working boys and girls of 16 and 17------------------------------------- ...-------Race and nativity of working children--------------------------------------------Child labor, school attendance, and illiteracy-------------------------------Sum m ary: Boys and girls 10 to 17 years of age, inclusive------------------Chapter II.— Children’s work and working conditions---------------------------------Manufacturing, trade, transportation, and clerical occupations---------Manufacturing and mechanical occupations-----------------------------------Trade, transportation, and clerical occupations------------------------------Industrial home work-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Street tra d es----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Domestic service----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------W ork in agriculture-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------W ork in mining____________________________________________________________
Reading references________________________________________________________
Chapter III.— Legal regulation of child labor----------------------------------------------Minimum age for employment and compulsory school attendance------Regulation of employment outside school hours— -------------------------------Compulsory continuation school attendance------------------------------------------Physical examination requirements-------- ----------------------------------------------Maximum hours o f work----------------------------------------------------------------------------Prohibition of night work------------------------------------------------------------------------Minimum-wage laws----------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------Regulation o f employment in hazardous occupations----------------------------Prohibition of employment in hazardous occupations------------------Minors under the workmen’s compensation acts----------------------------Employments in need o f special types of regulation-------------------------------Street trades---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Industrial home work------------------------------------------------------------------------Domestic service----------------------------------------------------------------- --------- -------Agriculture--------------------------------------------- — ----------------------------------------- Migratory child labor----------------------------------------------------------------------—
Administration o f child-labor laws---------------------------------------------------------Child labor and the National Recovery Administration--------------------Conclusions---------- ---------------------------------------------------------— --------------------------Chapter IV .— A brief history of child labor--------------------------------------------------The Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution-------------------------------------The coming of industrialism------------------------------------------------------------------—
Early child labor in the United States----------------------------------------------------Growth of child-labor legislation in the United States------------------------International regulation of child labor---------------------------------------------------Reading references------------------------- -----------------------------------------------------------Appendix.— T a b les------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------- ----------

¥
A

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

V
i

3
3
4

8
14
17
18
19

21
21
21
27
28
29
30
30
33
34
36
38
40
41
42
43
44
45
47
47
49
49
49
50
51
51
53
54
55
60
61
61
62
67
69
72
75
77

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

n it e d

S tates D

e p a r t m e n t of

abor,

C h il d r e n ’s B

ureau,

W ashing ton, October 15 1933.

I transmit herewith a bulletin entitled “ Child Labor—
Facts and Figures” , which revises and brings up to date the Chil
dren’s Bureau bulletin previously issued under that title. It is one
o f a series of publications prepared in the industrial division o f the
Bureau for distribution in response to requests for brief summaries
of information on the various aspects of child labor. The report was
written by Jean A. Flexner, assisted by Ella Arvilla Merritt, under
the general supervision o f Clara M. Beyer. The legal analyses were
prepared by Lucy Manning.
M

adam

G race A

Hon.

rances

P e r k in s ,

Secretary of Labor.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

bbott,

C h ief.

This bulletin is intended to present in simplified form the out
standing features o!f the child-labor problem. I t furnishes an
approach to the subject, indicates a method o f study, and puts into
easily available form material from many widely scattered sources.
It cannot, however, be regarded as furnishing information which
is either complete or final. The legal and statistical matter it con
tains, for example, is subject to continual revision as new laws are
enacted and as the results of further research are made known. The
adoption of codes o f fair competition under the National Industrial
Kecovery Act passed in June 1933 is introducing a new method o f
setting minimum age and other requirements for child labor. About
50 codes, including codes for many of the principal industries, had
been approved by the President at the time this bulletin went to
press (Nov. 10, 1933), but so recently that it is not possible as yet to
measure their effects.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOR
CHAPTER I.— CHILD LABOR IN THE UNITED STATES
youn£s persons is a social problem whenever
and wherever it deprives them of the opportunity for normal devel
opment. I f children go to work too soon or work under unfavorable
conditions, the result is harmful not only to the individual but also
to society.» The work o f children and adolescents for long hours
or at tasks beyond their strength is detrimental to normal physical
development and often definitely injurious to health. It also deprives
them of the schooling and recreation necessary for developing and
perpetuating in the individual the fundamental, physical, mental
moral, and social capacities of the race.
But.the standards o f public opinion as to what is necessary for
normal development vary from generation to generation. Even
today all communities are not agreed as to the age at which chil
dren should be permitted to enter regular employment, nor as to the
types o f work in which they should first be permitted to engage.
The problem must be visualized as a changing one, which lessens as
higher standards are adopted, regulations improved, and employmentrestricted, but which increases as new light is shed upon the effects
o f industrial work on growing boys and girls.
About the opening o f the twentieth century it was assumed that
most kinds of regular employment were not harmful to children of
14 and 15 j that is, that the child-labor problem was practically lim
ited to children under 14.1 Gradually the concept o f 16 as a more
desirable minimum age for going to work gained ground. Still later
the realization spread that children do not suddenly grow up on
their sixteenth birthday no more than they do on their fourteenth,
and that older boys and girls at work also require study, protection,
and assistance in making industrial adjustment. Beginning with
1920 the census has given figures for the 16- and 17-year-old wage
earning group, as well as the younger group.
The United States Census o f Occupations is the most complete
source of information concerning the extent o f child labor, yet it
does not give a complete picture; in the first place it does not enum
erate children younger than 10 who may be gainfully employed,
ui
mvestigations have shown that considerable numbers o f such
children have worked, and still do so, more or less regularly, in
that

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

514alS° ********

CMWren WOrMng on farms d0

CHILD LABOR

shops, in tenements on industrial home work, on farms, and in street
trades, although the number cannot be estimated with any degree of
accuracy. Furthermore, the census is taken at a season o f the year
when schools are still in session, and agricultural work in many
parts o f the country is not yet in full swing. Thus each census gives
an understatement o f the numbers actually employed; in particular
the earlier censuses understate the numbers of young children at
work.
In 1900, as has been said, child labor was considered the work of
children under 14. A t that time nearly 800,000 children aged IQyto
13 years, inclusive, were employed (table 1). Between 1900 ancT
1910 the number of such workers increased by more than 100,000; in
1920 it fell off, and was reduced still further in 1930. However, at
this last date more than 200,000 children o f the 10 to 13 age group
were still at work—24 out o f every 1,000 o f the same age in the popu
lation. Although this is a much better showing than 123 per 1,000
(1910), or 44 per 1,000 (1920), the number is still large. This, more
over, is the average for the United States as a whole; in some States
it is very much higher. (See p. 78.)
T able 1.— Children 10 to 11 years old painfully employed, by age group#, in the
United States, 1900 to 1930
10 to 13 years
Census year
Number

1900...
1910...
1920...
1930...

790,623
895,976
378, 063
235,328

14 and 15 years

Rate per
1,000 of
these ages
121
123
44
24

Number

959,555
1,094,249
682,795
431,790

16 and 17 years

Rate per
1,000 of
these ages
309
307
175
92

Number

(l)
G)
1,712,648
1,478,841

Rate per
1,000 of
these ages
(')
0)

447
>.. 317

1 Not reported.
Compiled from Children in Gainful Occupations, United States Census, 1920 and 1930,
and from Child Labor in the United States, United States Census, 1900.

I f the more generally accepted definition o f child labor up to
age 16 is used, what is the picture? Many more children aged 14
and 15 have been at work during this entire period than those 10
to 13 years old. Adding the two groups together in 1900, 1,750,000
children worked, 182 per 1,000 in the population o f these ages.
Probably this was an understatement; in 1910 a more accurate count
revealed close to 2,000,000 gainfully employed (184 per 1,000).
In 1920 there was a sharp drop; at this time the second Federal
Child-Labor Law (see p. 72) was being enforced. A little more than
a million were found employed— 85 per 1,000. In 1930, when an
industrial depression was restricting employment opportunities,
there was a further, but not so sharp, drop. There were still
667,118 children under 16— 47 per 1,000—-employed. I f the 1,480,000
young workers of 16 and 17 are added, the total child-labor problem
in 1930 embraces more than 2,000,000 boys and girls 10 to 17 years
o f age, inclusive, or 113 per 1,000 of these ages. This group of work
ers constitute 4 percent o f all persons recorded by the United States

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

EXTENT AND DISTRIBUTION

Census Bureau as gainfully occupied. A third o f the number are
girls, representing 1 in every 13 of the girl population aged 10 to IT,
inclusive, and 7 percent of all gainfully occupied females. The boys
constitute 1 in every 7 boys aged 10 to 17, inclusive, and 4 percent of
the total number or males gainfully employed.2
WORKING CHILDREN UNDER 10 YEARS OF AGE

Although the number o f steady year-round workers under 10 years
o f age is not large, and although statistics for this group are not
available, it is known that considerable numbers are intermittently
employed in agriculture, in newspaper selling and in other street
trades, and in industrial home work. It is certainly undesirable that
these young children should spend long hours at exhausting or de
moralizing occupations. Some idea o f the extent o f employment o f
children under 10 can be gained from special studies made in widely
scattered areas. Twenty-four percent of the child workers found
on 8 crops in 2 series o f studies o f children in agriculture
made in the early 1920’s were younger than 10 years, and the work
at which they were employed was often found to involve excessive
fatigue and physical strain. The number o f children under 10 in
street trades has been found to vary in different communities, rang
ing from 5 percent to 21 percent of all the children under 16 so
engaged. Many young boys sell newspapers until late at night and
sometimes sleep in the newspaper distributing rooms. The numbers
o f very young children in industrial home work are difficult to deter
mine, but certain studies have revealed a large proportion under 10;
in Newark and six other New Jersey communities in 1925 almost
one fourth o f 1,131 children were younger than 10 years of age,
and in Pennsylvania in 1924 one third of 1,239 children.3
WORKING CHILDREN 10 TO 17 YEARS OF AGE, INCLUSIVE

The last two censuses of occupations, taken in 1920 and 1930, pre
sent data on working children o f 10 to 17. This report will consider
three age groups separately: Children 10 to 13, children of 14 and
15, and boys and girls of 16 and 17 years. This division is made
because the numbers working and the occupations, and consequently
the problems, are very different for the three age groups. Children
under 14 are subject to compulsory school-attendance laws and are
prohibited from entering many employments. Children of 14 and
15 are in many States permitted to leave school to go to work, with
work certificates, and with some regulation depending on the type
o f employment. A t 16 much o f this regulation ceases. The most
advanced standards which have been set up in regard to child labor
contemplate the total elimination from gainful employment o f chil
dren under 14; the elimination o f children up to 16 during school
hours, with careful regulation of employment outside school hours
up to age 16; and up to age 18 certification o f all children at work,
2 Fifteenth Census o f the United States, 1930, Population, vol. 5, pp. 10 and 345.
U.S. Bureau o f the Census. W ashington, 1933.
8 Child L a b o r ; report o f the subcommittee on child labor o f the W hite House Confer
ence on Child H ealth and P rotection, pp. 224, 150, 128. Century Co., New York, 1932.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOR

school attendance if child is unemployed, regulation of hours and
conditions o f work, and prohibition o f employment in hazardous
occupations. In order to facilitate the planning o f programs along
these lines, it is convenient to have figures for child employment
arranged in these three age groups.
In connection with each age group the geographical and occupa
tional distribution o f the workers, together with outstanding changes
between 1920 and 1930, are considered. The total number working,
and especially the proportion which working children constitute of
all children o f these ages in the population o f a given region or
State, shows the extent of the child-labor problem. But the nature
of the problem will vary with the kinds o f work children do. I f
they are engaged mainly in agriculture they are scattered over a wide
rural area, difficult to reach by inspectors and by certificating and
school-attendance officers. I f they are mainly in nonagricultural
types o f work they are in towns and cities, usually somewhat easier
to supervise. However, regulation is in itself a complicated process.
“ Nonagricultural work ” , although it can conveniently be grouped
together for the purpose o f contrasting it with farm work, includes a
bewildering variety of jobs in factories, stores, commercial offices,
homes, restaurants, barber shops, and on streets.
In dealing with so many States covering so large an area as does
the United States it is convenient sometimes to speak in terms of
regions. The census groups the 48 States and the District of Colum
bia into nine geographic divisions based partly upon natural bound
aries, partly on economic characteristics. Table 2 pictures the
number o f employed children of each age group in these different
divisions. Appendix tables B, C, D, E, and F give information
for single States, grouped regionally. (See pp. 79-85.) Some in
formation for working children o f 14 and 15 is presented in the
form o f a bar chart (see p. 10) for the separate States ranked ac
cording to the extent o f child labor. Child-labor conditions on the
whole tend to resemble each other in adjacent States where eco
nomic conditions are similar. For this reason, and in the interest
o f brevity and clarity, the nine geographic divisions into which the
United States is divided by the Census Bureau are used in the tables
and referred to in the text; where certain States differ markedly
from the regional averages attention is called to that fact.
WORKING CHILDREN 10 TO 13, INCLUSIVE

Where and in what occupations are the 235,328 children aged 10
to 13 enumerated by the 1930 census employed ?
Geographical distribution

In 1930, 89 percent o f the employed children 10 to 13 years o f age
were in the 16 States and the District o f Columbia which the census
groups in the three southern geographical divisions 4 and which con
tain only 35 percent of all the children o f these ages in the popula
tion. Nine Southern States account for more than three fourths of
the total number—Mississippi (35,424), Alabama (31,565), Georgia
4 South A tlantic S ta te s: Delaware, M aryland, Virginia, W est Virginia, North Carolina,
South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, and the D istrict o f C olum bia; E ast South Central
S ta tes: Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, M ississip p i; W est South Central S ta te s: Arkansas,
Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

T able

2 .—

Children 10 to 17 years old gainfully employed, by age groups, in the United States and in each geographic division; 1910 1920,
and 1930

1910

1920

1930

1910

1920

895,976

378,063

235,328

123

4,390'
21,805
36,255
47,642
308,347
253,490
211,694
8,201
4,152

2,999
8,896
14,562
12,859
123, 547
115,132
91,113
5,006
3,949

1,297
3,555
7,778
7,711
73, 258
, 84,398
50,949
3,279
3,103

10
16
27
51
277
329
261
43
16

6
5
9
13
94
132
92
18
11

Rate per 1,000 of
these ages

Number

1910

1920

1930

1,094,249

682,795

431,790

307

175

2
2
4
7
52
97
49
11
6

59,549
165,976
139, 985
94,404
254,899
188,400
160,979
13,987
16,070

56,240
122, 645
86,239
45,047
150, 434
106, 210
93,154
10, 606
12, 220

18,990
51, 261
29,408
30,946
124,427
91,225
69,699
8,308
7,526

268
246
206
204
475
500
409
152
121

235
167
119
96
251
267
204
88
75

1930

1910

1920

Number

Rate per 1,000
of these ages

1920

1930

Í, 712,648

1,478,841

447

317

64
54
32
61
183
214
138
57
30

135,633
433,397
327,774
153,741
257,391
160,070
156,212
32,722
55, 708

106,997
351,673
231, 245
132,536
264,993
164,031
153,665
31,359
42,342

570
583
451
330
451
426
361
286
344

369
374
258
263
387
378
297
220
166

1930

1920

1930

EXTENT AND DISTRIBUTION

United States____
New England_________
Middle Atlantic_______
East North Central____
West North Central___
South Atlantic..............
East South Central-----West South Centra]-----Mountain_____________
Pacific............................

Rate per 1,000 of
these ages

Number

Geographic division

16 and-17 years

14 and 15 years

10 to 13 years

Compiled from Children in Gainful Occupations, United States Census, 1920 and 1930.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOE

(23,847), Texas (21,370), South Carolina (20,114), North Carolina
(19,361), Arkansas (14,817), Louisiana (11,273), Tennessee (11,017).
Whereas in the country as a whole 24 per 1,000 children of these ages
worked in 1930, in these nine States the proportion o f working chil
dren ranges from 194 to 44 per 1,000.
A ll the remaining geographical divisions have a lower ratio of
children working than the average for the United States. The group
o f States with the next highest proportion of their children of these
ages at work, the Mountain States, show only 11 per 1,000 employed.
Among this group the highest proportions are found in New Mexico,
with 18 per 1,000, and in Arizona, with 16 per 1,000. O f the remain
ing States in other sections o f the country, only Missouri has as
many as 11 per 1,000 at work. Eight States in the North and East
show only 2 per 1,000 employed.
Many States materially reduced the number and proportion of
their children under 14 at work between 1920 and 1930. States in
which the proportion working was reduced by half or more include
all the New England and Middle Atlantic States; Indiana, Illinois,
Michigan, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Kansas, in the North Central States;
Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, in the South Atlantic
group; Oklahoma, Texas, in the West South Central States; Idaho,
Arizona, Utah, in the Mountain States; and California, in the Pacific
group. The wide geographical distribution o f these States indicates
that many factors were at work reducing child labor during the
decade.
Occupations of children of 10 to 13, inclusive

The child-labor problem for children under 14 is largely agricul
tural; more than 200,000 ( 87 percent) of these children are working
on farms. (Table 3; see also appendix table B, p. 79.) Practi
cally all these children working in agriculture are attributed by the
census to the southern geographical divisions. The situation would
have been different had the census been taken in late spring or
summer rather than at the beginning of April. For at this date
planting and cultivating are not under way, except in the Southern
States; a month or two later many more workers would be employed
in other parts o f the country. A still larger number would be found
at work throughout the country during the harvest season. Although
the indications are that throughout the year a higher proportion of
children are employed in agriculture in the Southern and South
western States than in other parts o f the country, the disproportion
is not so great as the census makes it appear.
In spite o f the high proportion employed in agriculture the num
ber of very young children engaged in other pursuits— 30,000—is
sufficiently large to require serious consideration. Next to agricul
ture the principal employment is trade, with 15,000; domestic and
personal service employs 7,500, and manufacturing and mechanical in
dustries employ almost 5,000. Very few children in this age group are
employed in transportation and communication, in the extraction o f
minerals, or in forestry and fishing. About 700 are clerical workers.
Forty-six percent of the children 10 to 13, inclusive, engaged in
nonagricultural pursuits are found in 16 Southern States and in the
District of Columbia; the remaining 54 percent are distributed over
32 States.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

EXTENT AND DISTRIBUTION

A decrease of 90 percent occurred between 1920 and 1930 in the
employment o f children under 14 in clerical work ; decreases of more
than 50 percent occurred in the extraction o f minerals, in transpor
tation and communication, and in manufacturing and mechanical
industries. The decrease in employment in service occupations and
in agriculture was only slightly more than a third (34 and 37 percent,
respectively). The numbers employed in trade dropped very little
(15 percent).
T able 8.— Children 10 to 11 years old gainfully employed, by age groups and by
main occupational divisions, in the United States, 1920 and 1930, and percent
o f increase or decrease in 1930 as compared with 1920
10 to 13 years
Main occupational divisions

Number
1920

1930

14 and 15 years

Per
cent of
change

Number
1920

1930

PerCCllt of
change

16 and 17 years
Number
1920

1930

Per
cent of
change

All occupations______ 378,063 235,328

-3 8 682, 795 431, 790

-3 7 1, 712,648 1,478,841

-1 4

Agricultural-.____________ 328,297 205,563
N onagricultural.................. 49, 766 29,765

-3 7 315,877 263,934
-4 0 366,918 167,856

-1 6
469,132
-5 4 1,243, 516

506,071
972, 770

+8
-2 2

-4 2
-7 9

-3 6
-8 4

8,137
43,210

5,808
18,412

-2 9
-5 7

Forestry and fishing___
385
Extraction of minerals..
647
Manufacturing and mechanical industries___ 9,733
Transportation and
communication______ 1,899
Trade_____________ . . 17,333
Clerical occupations___ 6,807
Service occupations____ 12,962
Domestic and personal____ _______ 12,172
153
Public service_____
Professional service.
637

222
137
4,761

2,087
6,544

1,340
1,047

-51 175,919

63,505

-6 4

585,367

397,985

-3 2

583
14,746
703
8,613

-6 9
-1 5
-9 0
-3 4

17,013
46,391
72, 977
45,987

8,134
34,869
16,100
42,861

-5 2
-2 5
-7 8
-7

88,407
134,810
240,133
143,452

66,338
138,348
155,379
190,500

-2 5
+3
-3 5
+33

7,501
143
969

-3 8
-7
0)

41,834
977
3,176

38,644
342
3,875

-8
-6 5
0)

112,536
10,927
19,989

163,159
4,266
23,075

+45
-6 1
(0

1 Percent of change not shown as 1920 and 1930 figures are not comparable because of changes in classifying
occupational subgroups.
Compiled from Children in Gainful Occupations, United States Census, 1920 and 1930.

Broad occupational headings, like those just used, mean little until
broken down into particular occupations. This has been done in
table 4 and appendix table A. (See p. 78.) Table A shows, for
example, in what kinds of manufacturing industries children are
mainly employed. O f those aged 10 to 13 the largest single group
(844) are classified as laborers and helpers in building industries.
Other industries employing young children include: Lumber and
furniture (646), turpentine farms and distilleries (565), and textiles
(484). Factory work o f all kinds is indefensible for children under
14 on account o f the exposure to machinery, belts, and gears and to
noise, vibration, and dust.
Those who work with the child-labor problem are accustomed to
grouping children’s occupations somewhat differently from the
system used by the Census Bureau. The census is intended to show
how the productive forces of the Nation are organized. However,
the questions which those interested in the child-labor problem
chiefly want answered are such questions as: How many children
work in occupations which are very dangerous? How many do
rough unskilled work? How many are engaged in work which con
tains either an clement of skill or the promise of imparting skill

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOR

and opening the child’s way to advancement? In order to answer
some o f these questions the census figures have been regrouped in
table 4. This table shows that o f the youngest group of working
children an insignificant number are employed as. apprentices or
assistants to workmen in skilled trades (332); hardly any are em
ployed in such occupations as clerical workers, barbers and hair
dressers, telephone and telegraph operators. The most important
occupational groups are: Street trades, 11,000—including newspaper
sellers, bootblacks, canvassers, hucksters, and peddlers; domestic
servants, 6,500; unskilled laborers, more than 4,000—between 2,000
and 3,000 being in manufacturing industries; operatives in factories,
about 2,000—-many of these being exposed to mechanical hazards;
telegraph messengers and delivery boys, about 1,700—both occupa
tions involving traffic hazards and injury from motor vehicles; sales
persons in stores, 1,400. It is significant that whereas most o f these
occupations show heavy decreases since 1920 for these young chil
dren, there are a few increases in extremely undesirable types of
work, for example, some o f the laboring groups, canvassers, and
delivery boys. Large decreases are shown for apprentices, and for
messenger, bundle, and office boys and girls, and telegraph
messengers.
WORKING CHILDREN OF 14 AND 15

Geographical distribution

In 1930, 431,790 children o f 14 and 15 were gainfully employed, 92
per 1,000 of the population o f these ages (table 2 and bar chart;
also appendix table C, p. 80). As in the case of the younger chil
dren, the States o f the South Atlantic, East South Central, and
West South Central groups lead, both in the actual numbers work
ing and in the proportion which these constitute of all children in
the population. In two o f these States (Mississippi and South
Carolina) a third of the children o f these ages work; in two others
(Georgia and Alabama) a little more than a fourth; in North Caro
lina and Arkansas about a fifth. Three States in these groups (Dela
ware, West Virginia, and Oklahoma) have a much smaller propor
tion o f children employed than others in the same geographic divi
sions. One reason for the large numbers still found at work in 1930
in these regions is that a very high proportion work in agriculture,
as is true o f the younger children, and regulation is difficult in rural
districts. Another reason is that widespread unemployment affect
ing nonagricultural pursuits was in 1930 rendering jobs for chil
dren scarce, especially in the North and East, whereas southern
cities were not, in 1930, experiencing this job shortage to the same
degree.
In spite o f unemployment, the New England group o f States
ranks next with 64 per 1,000 at work; the West North Central
States have 61 per 1,000 and the Mountain States 57 per 1,000. The
fewest children are found in the East North Central States and the
Pacific Coast States, respectively 32 per 1,000 and 30 per 1,000. The
ranking o f the individual States is shown in the accompanying bar
chart. I f the figures for separate States are compared with regional
figures (table 2, p. 5), it will be seen that, on the whole, adjacent
States present a rather similar picture. However, certain exceptions
stand out: Oregon, with 50 per 1,000 employed, stands higher

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

EXTENT AND DISTRIBUTION

T a b l e 4.— Children 10 to 11 years old gainfully employed in certain types of

work in selected industries in the United States, 1920 and 1930, by age groups,
and percentage change in 1930 as compared with 1920
10 to 13 years
Type of work and industry

1920

Apprentices in mechanical trades. 1,219
Assistants in mechanical trades2.
119
Operatives in manufacturing and
mechanical industries 3_______ 4,095
Laborers (in specified industries). 6,974
Laborers in manufacturing
and mechanical industries3. 4,573
Laborers in coal yards, warehouses, etc________ ______
111
Garage laborers____________
88
Street and street-railroad
laborers_________________
154
Steam-railroad laborers_____
280
Other transportation laborers
39
Public-service laborers_____
92
Laborers, porters, helpers in
stores___________________
931
Janitors, porters, and laborers in domestic and persona! and p r o f e s s io n a l
service4........................ . . .
706

14 and 15 years

Percent
1920
1930
of
change1
301
31

-7 5 17, 756
-7 4 1,831

16 and 17 years

Percent
1930
of
change
3,870
520

-7 8
-7 2

Percent
of
change

1920

1930

81,681
29,216

34,469
19,282

-5 8
-3 4

1,947
4,139

-5 2 114,562 43,194
-41 56,249 25,661

-6 2 325, 548 247,983
-5 4 199,087 154,042

-2 4
-2 3

2,690

-3 0

-4 1 44,325 17,991

-5 9 156,759 109,-864

58
51

-4 8
-4 2

854
799

431
677

-5 0
-1 5

3,559
2,892

2,395
4,143

-3 3
+43

101
80
19
138

-3 4
-71
+50

932
2,275
318
525

693
383
118
314

-2 6
-8 3
-63
-4 0

3,739
14,907
1,392
2,380

5,922
5,285
999
1,576

+58
-6 5
-2 8
-3 4

593

-3 6

4,052

3,551

-1 2

8,564

14, 314

+67

-4 2

2,169

4,895

9,544

+95

409

1,503

-3 1

Domestic servants 5____________ 10,252

6,545

-3 6 34,184 33,584

-2

92,328 132,027

+43

Servants and waiters_______ 9,612
Launderers and laundresses. 503
Charwomen and cleaners___
137

6,246
299

-3 5 31,974 32,215
-4 1 1,945 1,369
265

+1
-3 0

85,938 126,581
5,884
4,434
506
1,012

+47
-2 5
+100

Street traders__________________ 13,861 11,227

-1 9

9,632 12,618

+31

4,534

10,807

+138

Newsboys.. ______________ 12,923 10,603
Bootblacks________________
305
720
Hucksters and peddlers_____
51
98
Canvassers________________
268
120

-1 8
-5 8
-4 8
+123

7,783 11,180
1,352
994
245
. 261
236
199

+44
-2 6
-6
-1 6

2,465
1,358
563
148

6,968
2,387
832
620

+183
+76
+48
+319

Telegraph messengers and delivery b o y s ____________ _______ 1,085

1,745

+61

7,605

9,845

+29

13,804

23,891

+73

347

-7 4

3,722

3,307

-1 1

3,125

7,927

+154

738

1,655

+124

3,883

6,538

+68

10, 679. 15,964

+49

Chauffeurs and drivers 6. ______
528
Cranemen, derrickmen, hoistmen, and elevator tenders 7___
43
Clerical workers 3______________
Telephone and telegraph operators....................... ...................
154
Messenger, errand, bundle, and
office boys and girls__________ 6,807
Sales boys and girls in stores 9___ 2,350
Barbers and hairdressers_______
116

-9 1

4,120

1,315

-6 8

22,017

13,852

—37

520
31,533

175
6,358

-6 6
2,866
2,345
—80 199,090 120,045

-1 8
-4 0

3,034

566

Telegraph messengers______
Delivery boys (stores, bakeries, laundries)_________

4
12
67
691
1,402
75

-5 6

-9 0 41,221 9,742
-4 0 28,020 11,961
810
536
-3 5

-8 1

28,916

17,518

-3 9

-7 6 39,285
-5 7 104,028
-3 4
2,486

34,748
90,345
4,704

-1 2
-1 3
+89

Theater and circus employees___

209

123

-4 1

995

659

-3 4

3,022

4,888

+62

Actors and showmen______
Theatrical attendants and
stage hands______________

109

-1 7

291

202

-3 1

1,487

1,747

+17

100

-6 8

704

457

-3 5

1,535

3,141

+105

1 Not shown where number of children employed in 1920 was less than 50.
1 Includes bakers, carpenters, compositors, linotypers and typesetters, coopers, dressmakers and seam
stresses (not in factory), dyers, electrotypers, stereotypers, and lithographers, engineers (stationary),
fliers, grinders, buffers and polishers (metal), firemen (except locomotive and fire department), foremen
and overseers (manufacturing), furnace men, smelter men, heaters, puddlers, etc., oilers of machinery,
painters, glaziers, varnishers, enamelers, etc., shoemakers, cobblers (not in factory), tailors andtailoresses!
and upholsterers.
3 Includes laundries, cleaning, dyeing, and pressing shops.
* Janitors and porters not classified as laborers by census.
5 Includes servants in hotels, boarding houses, restaurants, as well as in private homes.
6 Includes chauffeurs, truck and tractor drivers, draymen, teamsters, and carriage drivers.
7 These workers would be considered with assistants in mechanical trades but are set forth as a group on
account of the especially dangerous character of the occupation.
8 Includes stenographers and typists, bookkeepers and cashiers, and clerks (except in stores).
9Includes clerks in stores, sales persons in stores, retail dealers (other than hucksters and peddlers).
Compiled from Children in Gainful Occupations, United States Census, 1920 and 1930.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

C H IL D LABOR

PROPORTION OF CHILDREN 14 AND 15 YEARS OF AG E ENGAGED IN NONAGRICU LTU RAL AND IN A G RICU LTU RAL OCCUPATIONS IN EACH STATE,
1930 1

Nurtvberper
OHlO
2)
C alifornia
.24
Indiana
28
Michigan
so
Maine
33
W ashington
# 35
District ^Columbia 35
New Hampshire 36
Illinois
Nevada

0
1

\ fi0 0

population Wand IS_years of age

100
200
300
400
----- '— ----- 1---------- 1--------- T.......... r....... ...|----------1 """ '1

Nonagricultural
A gricu ltu ral

Idaho
Utah
Minnesota
New YorK
W est Virginia
K a n sas
Montana
Nebraska
Oregon
Vermont

Wyoming
Wisconsin
Delaware
South Dakota
Pennsylvania
Iowa
M assach u setts
North Dakota
Arizona
New J ersey
Oklahoma
Colorado
New Mexico
Connecticut
Missouri
Rhode Island
Maryland
Virginia
Kentucky
T ex a s
Florida
Tennessee
Louisiana
A r k a n sa s
North. Carolina
Alabam a
G eo rgia
South C arolina
Mississippi
400
Compiled from reports o f United States Bureau o f the Census.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

EXTENT AND DISTRIBUTION

proportionally in child employment than either Washington or Cali
fornia. In the mountain group, Colorado and New Mexico (each
with 71 per 1,000) exceed the regional total of 57 per 1,000. Mis
souri has a much higher proportion (88 per 1,000) than the average
o f the other West North Central States (61 per 1,000) ; Wisconsin,
with 52 per 1,000, greatly exceeds the regional average o f 32 per
1,000. In New England, Rhode Island with 91 and Connecticut
with 88 per 1,000 employed make a much worse showing than the
other States in this division. O f the three Middle Atlantic States
New York has 45 employed per 1,000 o f these ages; Pennsylvania,
58; and New Jersey, 68.
The bar chart clearly shows that, although the highest propor
tions o f children at work occur in agricultural States, some of the
States having the lowest proportions of children at work are like
wise important agricultural producers; for instance, Ohio, Cali
fornia, Indiana, Michigan, Maine, and Washington. Many o f the
States in which the dominant type o f child employment is nonagricultural have much higher proportions o f their 14- and 15-yearold children at work, namely, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jer
sey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. It is only fair to
point out, however, that in many o f the States making the best show
ing the number o f children employed in agriculture is much greater
at certain seasons than in April when the census was taken.
Advances that have been made in State child-labor legislation
and in school-attendance laws in recent years have widely affected
the employment o f 14- and 15-year-old children. Grade standards
for employment, regulation o f hours, and employment-certificate
requirements have operated, both directly and indirectly, to reduce
the number o f children of these ages at work. Where employment
has not been actually prohibited it has been discouraged because
many employers, rather than comply with these regulations, hire
fewer children under 16. T o a considerable extent children in this
age group have also been affected by a general reduction in work
opportunities.
These several factors brought about a decrease o f 37 percent in
the number o f 14- and 15-year-old children employed as compared
with 1920— a decrease which is practically as great as that o f chil
dren 10 to 13. The greatest drop in employment occurred in the
New England, Middle Atlantic, and East North Central States,
sections in which most of the children at work are engaged outside
agriculture, and which were among the first to feel the effects o f
the depression. (See appendix table E, p. 82.) Employment o f
children of these ages in these three geographic divisions fell from
265,124 in 1920 to 99,659 in 1930, 62 percent. The Pacific Coast
States experienced a drop o f 38 percent, and the West North Central
States 31 percent.
The remaining geographical divisions showed less marked reduc
tions— the West South Central dropped 25 percent; the Mountain,
22 percent; the South Atlantic, 17 percent; the East South Central,
14 percent. Most o f the States in these regions have a high propor
tion o f boys and girls of these ages at work on farms, employment
which is not subject to the same fluctuations as industrial and com182342°— 33----- 2

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOE

mercial employment, partly because o f the fact that the farmer and
his family continue to work their land regardless of the return which
they receive on it in any one year. In contrast to the relative
stability o f agricultural employment, nonagricultural child labor in
these same States for the most part decreased sharply. Thus, in the
East South Central division (Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and
Mississippi) employment in nonagricultural occupations dropped 40
percent in 1930 as compared with 1920; in agricultural, 8 percent.
But, since the children in agriculture far outnumbered the others, the
net total decline was only 14 percent. In the West North Central
division (Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, North and South Dakota, Ne
braska, and Kansas), where about 60 percent o f the employed chil
dren are on farms, a drop o f 49 percent in nonagricultural employ
ment and o f 11 percent in agricultural employment, combined pro
duced a net decrease o f 31 percent.
A few States show unexpected increases in the number of 14- and
15-year-old children in nonagricultural employment: South Carolina,
an increase o f 29 percent; Florida, 7 percent; Georgia, 2 percent. In
two o f these States industrialization is going ahead at a fast pace;
the proportions o f children now engaged in nonagricultural work
are equal to the proportions employed in highly urbanized and indus
trialized States, such as New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut,
Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. The 1930 figures constitute a
danger signal, pointing out the need for checking this tendency.
That growth o f cities, commerce, and industry need not, at the pres
ent time, bring with it an increase in child labor is shown by the
record o f other parts o f the country. The East North Central and
the Pacific Coast States show increases in nonagricultural types of
employment, yet the proportions o f children o f 14 and 15 employed
in these sections decreased 80 percent and 62 percent, respectively.
Occupations of 14- and 15-year-old children

As is true of the youngest group o f working children, agricultural
work accounts for the largest number o f 14 and 15 year olds, 263,934
(61 percent) o f the total at work. This is, however, not as pre
ponderant a proportion as the 87 percent of children under 14 en
gaged in agriculture. Large numbers o f 14- and 15-year-old children
are engaged in manufacturing and mechanical industries (64,000),
service occupations (43,000), and trade (35,000) (table 3).
The manufacturing industries and trades employing thfe largest
numbers are as follows (see also appendix table A ) :
Textiles___________________20,141
Cotton____ ____________10, 395
Knitting-------------------- 3 ,4 26
Silk__________________
3, 540
Woolen and worsted874
Other textile________
1,9 06
Clothing__________________
Building industry________

8, 420
4, 826

Lumber and furniture_____4 ,1 4 4
Saw and planing______ 2, 685
Furniture and other- 1, 459
Food industries_____________3, 933
Metal and machinery (in
cludes iron and steei)_ 2,956
Leather industries_________2, 521

In contrast to the younger children the 14 and 15 year olds are
more frequently employed as operatives than as laborers in manu
facturing and mechanical industries— 43,000 operatives and 18,000
laborers. The laboring jobs are wholly unskilled and even the opera
https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

EXTENT AND DISTRIBUTION

tive jobs have little training value because comparatively few factory
operatives today are highly skilled craftsmen.
Nonfactory jobs for children of 14 and 15 in some instances may be
safer than factory work, but usually they offer little more in the way
of advancement and training. Among these children are about 7,500
holding laborers’ jobs in stores, office buildings, apartment houses,
coal yards, warehouses, garages, and in connection with both steam
and electric railroads; 84,000 are domestic servants, mostly in private
homes, the majority of these being girls; 12,600 are street traders;
almost 10,000 work as telegraph messengers and delivery boys
(table 4). Many o f the 8,900 messenger, errand, and office boys do
work for banks and offices similar to that done by delivery boys for
stores and messengers for telegraph companies. Thus about 80,000
boys of 14 and 15 years spend most o f their working time going about
crowded city streets, exposed to traffic hazards. O f these occupa
tions, involving outdoor work, a number showed increases between
1920 and 1930, contrary to the prevailing trends in the employment
o f children. Thus street traders o f 14 and 15 increased by nearly
a third, which reflects in part a tendency to start this kind o f work
at a later age, since it is matched by a falling off in numbers of
younger children; delivery boys increased by 68 percent, and there
was an even greater increase among the younger group (124 percent).
There was, however, a very large decline in the number o f boys
employed in messenger, errand, bundle, and office work, from 37,699
in 1920 to less than 9,000 in 1930.6
Among the least undesirable positions held by children under 16
may be classed store work and clerical work, and even these may
involve bad working conditions (see p. 27). The number of 14- and
15-year-old children in clerical occupations, including bookkeepers,
cashiers, and stenographers, has dropped 80 percent since 1920, from
more than 31,000 to 6,400, and the number in store work, including
sales persons and clerks, 57 percent, or from 28,000 to 12,000. Tele
phone and telegraph operators are now seldom under 16; whereas
in 1920 3,000 were 14* and 15 years o f age, there are now less than
600. Even if children are physically unscathed by going to work
before 16, they are missing the chance to obtain the education and
training which might qualify them for better jobs later in life.
On the whole, the largest decreases in the numbers o f 14- and 15year-old working children between 1920 and 1930 occurred in the
same occupational groups as in the case of the children under 14.
(See table 3.) Employment in mining decreased by 84 percent; in
manufacturing and mechanical trades, by 64 percent; in clerical
occupations, by 78 percent; in transportation and communication,
by half. However, relatively minor decreases occurred in agri
culture, trade, and service occupations— 16 percent, 25 -percent, and
7 percent, respectively. These last three groups, in 1920, consti
tuted 60 percent o f all the employed children of these ages, and in
1930, 79 percent. For this reason the grand total of all 14- and 15year-old children employed did not decrease as much as the spec
tacular decreases in certain occupations—employing relatively few
6
Comparatively few girl3 are listed by the census in this type o f work, and these are
engaged m ainly in indoor work. The figures given in the text are fo r boys o n ly ; those
given in the tables are fo r both sexes.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOR

of the working children—would lead one to expect. I f the trends
o f the past decade are projected into the future, it seems probable
that the child-labor problem will be centered more and more upon
employment in agriculture, trade, and various forms o f domestic
and personal service.
WORKING BOYS AND GIRLS OP 16 AND 17

Geographical Distribution

The number of 16- and if-year-old boys and girls working in 1930
was more than three times the number of those 14 and 15 years o ld =
1,473,841. This number constitutes Elf per 1?000 of these ages.
The proportions working are more nearly uniform for different
parts o f the country than is the case with the younger children. (See
table 2.) In. the South Atlantic States, where the highest propor
tion is at work, it is 387 per 1,000; in the East South Central
States, 378 per 1,000; in the Middle Atlantic States, 374; and in the
New England States, 369. The lowest rate prevails on the Pacific
coast, where 166 per 1,000 are employed. The highest rate of any
State is that o f Rhode Island, 544 per 1,000 working, and the lowest
that o f California, 153 per 1,000. (See appendix table D, p. 81.)
Although a fourth of the States show numerical increases in the
number of boys and girls o f these ages employed, in only one State,
Mississippi, did the proportion employed increase, from 463 per
1,000 children o f these ages in 1920 to 473 per 1,000 in 1930. For the
country as a whole there was a decrease of 14 percent in numbers
employed, while the rate fell from 447 per 1,000 to 317. (See
appendix table F, p. 84.)
Occupations of 16- and 17-year-old minors

This older group of boys and girls presents an occupational picture
which contrasts with that of the younger group because more ave
nues o f employment are normally open to them, because they are
better educated and more mature, and because they are subject to
fewer legal restrictions. One third are found in agriculture and
two thirds in other pursuits, mainly industrial or commercial (table
3 ). But this proportion is not equally representative of all parts
o f the country. In the New England and Middle Atlantic States
employment in agriculture is a negligible part of the total— at least
in the early spring when the census was taken. In the East North
Central States 22 percent are employed on farms; in the Pacific
Coast States the proportion on farms is slightly higher. In the
South Atlantic, Mountain, and West North Central States almost
half are employed in agriculture. On the other hand, in the East
and West South Central States— a belt stretching from Kentucky to
Arkansas and south to the Gulf—the numbers employed in agricul. ture far outnumber all other types o f employment.
In the United States as a whole manufacturing and mechanical
industries, employing about 400,000, rank second to agriculture, fol
lowed by service occupations (190,OOK)), clerical work (155,000), trade
(140.000) , transportation and communication (66,000), and mining
(18.000) , The boyi and girls employed as clerical workers are con
centrated in the Middle Atlantic and East; North Central States
(72 percent o f the total number so employed), The other occupa
tional groups are more dispersed, although these same States account

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

EXTENT AND DISTRIBUTION

for a large proportion o f each group: Service occupations, 43 per
cent; trade, 49 percent; transportation and communication, 48 per
cent; manufacturing and mechanical industries, 51 percent. The
South Atlantic States have 16 percent o f those employed in manu
facturing and mechanical industries; 13 percent o f those employed
in transportation and communication ; 12 percent o f those engaged
in trade; 16 percent of those in service occupations; and 5 percent
o f all the clerical workers 16 and 17 years o f age. The New Eng
land States contain 15 percent o f all the boys and girls o f these ages
who work in manufacturing and mechanical industries but contain
only relatively small proportions of those engaged in the other nonagricultural occupations. The percent distribution is as follow s:
Manufac Transpor
turing and tation and
mechanical communi
industries
cation

United States____

___

New England_____ ______ __
Middle Atlantic
_ _
East North Central___
West North Central. _
South Atlantic _____ __ _
East South Central_____ __ __
West South Central_____ _ _
Mountain___
__ __ _ .
Pacific. _
. . .

Trade

Service
Clerical occupa
tions

100

15
35
16
5
16
5
4
1
2

6
29
19
9
13
7
9

8
28
21
9
12
6
9
2
5

7
52
20
7
5
2
4
1

23
20
10
16
7
9
3

3
4

Boys and girls of 16 and 17 have better chances than children
younger than 16 to obtain the relatively desirable and better-paying
jobs. Thus in manufacturing and mechanical industries the number
o f operatives greatly exceeds the number o f laborers in this age
group— 248,000 compared to 110,000 (table 4). Only after 16 are
appreciable numbers found as apprentices or assistants to skilled
trades 34,500 and 19,000 aged 16 and 17. Outside manufacturing
the same tendencies appear. There are 120,000 bookkeepers, cashiers
and clerks; 17,500 telephone and telegraph operators; 90,000 sales
persons and clerks in stores; very few younger children are found in
these occupations. Nevertheless, large numbers even o f these older
children are engaged in unskilled or otherwise undesirable occupa.o n s , for instance, the 110,000 laborers in the manufacturing industry, already mentioned, and, outside manufacturing, 44,000 laborers
porters, janitors, helpers in stores, warehouses, coal yards, etc.’
11,000 in street trades, 24,000 messengers and delivery boys, 127 000
servants and waiters.
For really skilled and responsible positions the minimum age for
hiring is usually 18 or over. However, some of 16 and 17 are en
gaged on work that involves over great responsibility and risk- for
instance, 12,000 are chauffeurs and 2,300 are elevator tenders’ and
hoisting engineers, derrick and crane men.
Heavy decreases in the employment o f 16- and 17-year olds took
place between 1920 and 1930 in all the better classes o f occupations
Apprentices and assistants in skilled trades decreased 58 and 34 per
https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOR

cent, respectively; clerical workers, 40 percent; telephone and tele
graph operators, 39 percent. Increases, sometimes large, appeared in
relatively undesirable occupations—laborers; porters in stores;
laborers in domestic, personal, and professional services; domestic
servants; street trades; telegraph messengers and delivery boys;
beauty-parlor employees; and theater and circus attendants. These
increases sometimes mark a shifting o f age groups within the occu
pations, a tendency to employ older in preference to younger chil
dren. Apparently children of 16 and i t are more likely to be em
ployed as messenger, bundle, and office boys and girls and in store
work than children under 16, although even in the older groups the
number decreased somewhat.
Fourteen percent fewer boys and girls of 16 and 17 years were
employed in 1930 than in 1920. Thus the drop is less pronounced
than among the younger children. The factors tending to reduce
employment among the two age groups are not identical, and some
difference in the rate o f decrease might be expected. The ages 16
and 17 years have not been affected by changes in legislation as much
as have the younger children; increased school attendance among the
older group o f children, while marked, is more likely to be vol
untary and part-time, for example, at night schools. Nevertheless, in
spite o f the difference in the rate o f total decrease, and in spite o f a
different occupational distribution, changes in the employment o f
older and younger children present certain striking similarities.
Thus the broad occupational groups showing increases among the
16- and 17-year old children were agriculture, trade, and domestic
and personal service, which show the smallest decreases at the
younger ages. It is noteworthy that the older children employed in
domestic and personal service increased by 45 percent. The occu
pations in which the most striking decreases took place among
younger children also showed the largest reductions for the older boys
and girls. In the extraction of minerals only half as many minors
o f 16 and 17 were employed in 1930 as in 1920. In manufacturing
and mechanical industries the decrease was 32 percent; in clerical
work 35 percent.
The total decrease in nonagricultural employment was 22 percent
a decrease in which the majority o f States participated. In certain
States (North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida and
Arizona), however, employment outside agriculture increased in the
decade.
An increase in agricultural employment o f only 8 percent is very
significant because of the large numbers involved; in fact it largely
offsets the 22 percent decrease in nonagricultural employment and ac
counts for the fact that total employment fell off by only 14 percent.
Most of the principal agricultural States showed increases in farm
employment, usually accompanied by sharp decreases in other forms
o f employment. This was true in all the West North Central
States except Kansas; also in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania,
Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and
Texas. Others showed practically stationary farm employment.
Some o f the leading industrial States showed striking percentage in
creases in agricultural employment, although, o f course, actual num-

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

EXTENT AND DISTRIBUTION

bers involved were small. For example, Massachusetts showed an
increase of 60 percent; Rhode Island, 68 percent; Connecticut, 39
percent; New Jersey, 33 percent.
RAGE AND NATIVITY OF WORKING CHILDREN

Almost three fourths of the gainfully employed children 10 to 17
years o f age, inclusive, in the United States today are native-born
white; 2 percent are foreign-born white, 22 percent are Negro, and
about 2 percent are o f other races, chiefly oriental or Mexican.
But, although the native white account for so many of the working
children, the Negroes have the highest ratio o f children at work—
236 per 1,000, compared with 97 o f the native white, 171 o f the for
eign-born white, and 125 o f other races. For the 14- and 15-year
group the rates are 267 per 1,000 Negro children, compared with 71
per 1,000 native-born white; 53 per 1,000 foreign-born w h ite;7 and
128 per 1,000 of other races. Also, the Negroes showed the least
decline between 1920 and 1930 in the ratio of working children to
all children in the racial group.
In view o f the fact that child labor is most prevalent among
Negroes and Mexicans, in regions where these races are concentrated
the proportion o f children working is raised for the whole region.
Thus in the West South Central States, where 120,648 children of
10 to 15, inclusive, or 78 per 1,000 children o f these ages, are em
ployed, 45 percent o f these children are Negro, Mexican, or oriental;
the proportion o f children o f these races who work is 148 per 1,000
for the Negroes arid 102 per 1,000 for the Mexicans and orientals.
O f the native whites, 58 per 1,000 work (table 5.)
T a b l e 5 .—

Children 10 to 15 years old gainfully employed, hy color and nativity,
in the United,States and in each geographic division; 1980

Native white

Total

Geographic divisions

Foreign-born
white

Other races1

Negro

Rate
Rate
Rate
Rate
Rate
per
per
per
per
per
1,000
1,000
1,000
1,000
1,000
chil
chil
Number
Number
chil
chil
Number
Number
chil
Number
dren
dren
dren
dren
dren
these
these
these
these
these
ages
ages
ages
ages
ages

United States_____ 667,118

407,300

4,144

240,057

161

15,617

New England.................. 20,287
54,816
Middle Atlantic___ ____
East North Central_____ 37,186
38,657
West North Central____
South Atlantic_________ 197,685
East South Central_____ 175,623
West South Central_____ 120,648
11,587
Mountain— ___________
Pacific_________________ 10,629

22
19
13
25
95
135
78
26
14

19,092
51,725
35,383
36,948
93,591
85,858
66,585
8,781
9,337

22
19
13
25
65
91
58
22
14

1,037
1,712
559
245
84
19
41
107
340

33
24
13
36
21
0)
30
37
15

147
1,354
1,143
1,107
103,218
89,617
43,311
66
94

15
15
14
37
163
255
148
28
13

11
25
101
357
792
129
10,711
2,633
858

(2)
13
15
31
241
(2)
102
55
13

1 Includes

Chinese, Japanese, Indians, Mexicans, and other races,
a Not shown because total children of these ages was less than 1,000.
Children in Gainful Occupations; U.S. Census, 1930.
7
The 1930 census does not subdivide the native white working children in to those of
native and those o f foreign-born or mixed parentage. In 1920 about one third o f the
native white children who were employed had either one or both parents o f foreign birth.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOR

Where child-labor and school-attendance laws are enforced and
public opinion is opposed to child labor, the employment of children
of all race and nativity groups is reduced. Thus in the Mountain
States only 55 per 1,000 children of Mexican or Oriental parentage
are employed, compared to 102 per 1,000 in the West South Central
States. In the Middle Atlantic States only 15 per 1,000 Negro chil
dren work and in the East North Central States only 14 per 1,000,
compared with 163 per 1,000 in the South Atlantic States.
Although Negro child labor is mainly concentrated in the South,
the southern child-labor problem is by no means limited to Negroes.
The white children working in the South outnumber the Negro
children, 246,000 to 236,000, although the proportion of white chil
dren 10 to 15 is considerably smaller, 69 per 1,000 compared with 185
per 1,000 o f the Negro. These white children constitute about
60 percent o f all white child workers in the country. Where a high
proportion or a large number o f Negro children are working, a high
proportion o f a large number o f white children are also employed.
The experience o f other sections o f the country suggests that reduc
tion in child labor among the two races will go hand in hand.
Negro children are concentrated in agriculture and in domestic
and personal service. Seventy-three percent o f Negroes of 10 to 17,
inclusive, gainfully employed are farm hands, compared with 45
percent o f the entire working population of these ages and with 38
percent o f the native whites. Domestic and personal service gives
employment to 13 percent of the Negro children but to only 10 per
cent of all the working children. Seven percent of the Negro chil
dren, compared with 22 percent o f children o f all races, work in
manufacturing and mechanical industries. The following lists shows
the industries in which gainfully occupied Negro children 10 to 17
years old are employed:
Percent
düstriNumber button
A ll industries---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 471,629
100
Agriculture-------------- -----------------------------_ ---------------------------------------------- 345, 863
1, 272
Forestry and fishing________________________________________________
Extraction o f minerals______________________________________________
1^511
Manufacturing and mechanical industries-______________....________ 32,189
Transportation and communication_________________________________
7,454
Trade---------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- 15, 017
Public service (not elsewhere classified)___________________________
690
Professional service_____________________ ____________________________
3 249
Domestic and personal service_____________ _________________________ 62, 499
Clerical occupations__________________________________________________
1,8 8 5

73
(8)
(8)
7

2
3
( 8)
1
13
(8)

CHIU) LABOR, SCHOOL ATTENDANCE, AND ILLITERACY

There was a high correlation in 1930, as in 1920, between child
labor, particularly in agriculture, and educational backwardness.
The sections that have high proportions of children at work also
have low proportions attending school and high proportions of
illiteracy, both in the age group 10 to 15, inclusive, and for the entire
population 10 years o f age and oyer. Table 6 shows these percent
ages for the nine geographic regions, ranked according to the pro
portion of their child populations who are employed.
8 Legs than 1 percent.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

EXTENT AND DISTRIBUTION

T abus 6.— Percentage o f children 10 to 15 gears old gainfully employed, attend
ing school, and illiterate, in the United Slates and in each geographic
division; 1930
Percent of all children
10 to 15 gainfully em
ployed
Geographic division 1
All occu
pations
United States__________ _________
East South Central____________________
South Atlantic______________ __________
West South Central____________________
Mountain____________________________ West North Central_____________ _______
New England______________ __________
Middle Atlantic-------------- --------------- -----Pacific-------- -------- ------------------------------ East North Central_____________________

Agricul
ture

5
14
9
8
3
3
2 2
1
1

(2)
«
(2)

Percent
Percent
of popu
Percent
of all chil of all chil lation 10
dren it) to dren 10 to years and
15 attend
over illit
ing school 15 illiterate
erate

12
7
7
2
2

91
89
91
96
95
96
97
98
97

3
3
3
1

10
8
7
4
1
4
4
2
2

(2)
(2)
(2)
(2)
(2)

1 Divisions arranged according to percentage of children 10 to 15 gainfully employed.
2 Less than 1 percent.
Compiled from Children in Gainful Occupations and from Composition and Characteristics of the
Population, U.S. Census, 1930

SUMMARY: BOYS AND GIRLS 10 TO 17 YEARS OF AGE, INCLUSIVE

About a third o f the 2,145,919 boys and girls gainfully employed
in 1930 were under 16 years o f age, and more than 10 percent were
under 14. Between 1920 and 1930 the number of young workers of
these ages decreased by 23 percent. The greater part of the decrease
occurred among children under 16 years of age, and was at approxi
mately the same rate for those aged 10 to 13 as for those 14 and 15
years of age, as is shown in the following list:
P ercen t
Age group

■ 10
16
14
10

to 17_________________________________________________
and 17________________________________________________
and 15-----------to 13_________________________________________________

distribution
1920
1930

100
62
25
14

100
69
20
11

Seventy percent of the working children between 10 and 16 are
engaged in agricultural pursuits. In spite o f the difficulties attend
ing regulation in this field, a spectacular decrease in the proportion
o f children o f these ages employed (61 percent between 1910 and
1920), ascribed in part to a change o f census’ date from April 15 in
1910 to January 1 in 1920, was confirmed by the census taken in
April 1930, a decrease o f 37 percent occurring between 1920 and 1930.
The total drop between 1910 and 1930 in the proportion of children
o f this age group in agricultural occupations was 75 percent. This
indicates what progress has already been made through public opin
ion and by means o f raising school-attendance standards in rural
districts, and holds out the hope for even more effective regulationin the future. It must be borne in mind, however, that no informa
tion is available as to either increase or decrease in the number of
children working in beet fields, on truck farms, and in other forms
of commercialized agriculture who were not employed in the months
in which the last two censuses were taken.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOR

Outside agriculture, in commerce, manufacturing, transportation,
clerical, domestic work, and so forth, the proportion of employed
children between 10 and 16 showed a decrease o f 37 percent from
1910 to 1920 and a greater decrease (58 percent) from 1920 to 1930—
a decrease that is due at least in part to curtailment of work oppor
tunities and therefore may not be permanent.
No information is available in the census for minors 16 and 17
years of age previous to 1920. It is not known whether the relatively
slight decrease in their employment (14 percent) between 1920 and
1930 was preceded by a decrease between 1910 and 1920. Future
employment o f this group will depend upon demand for juvenile
labor, family needs for minors’ earnings, and educational adaptations
made by the schools to appeal to young people confronted with the
choice between work and school.
A t the present time our farms and industries rely only to a small
and a decreasing extent upon the labor of young persons. Workers
10 to, 17 years o f age, inclusive, constitute 4.4 percent of all those
gainfully occupied. Children under 16 constitute 4.5 percent o f all
agricultural workers, 0.5 percent o f those in manufacturing, 0.4 per
cent o f clerical workers, 1 percent o f those in domestic and personal
service.
Minors of 16 and 17 play a somewhat larger but still insignificant
role in modern economic life. Like the younger group they are rela
tively more important in agriculture than in other pursuits. In spite
o f the fact that a smaller proportion o f these older minors are
employed in agricultural than in nonagricultural occupations, they
constitute 4.8 percent o f all agricultural workers and only 2.5 percent
of all nonagricultural workers. The almost 400,000 in manufactur
ing and mechanical pursuits form only 2.8 percent of industry’s total
personnel. The 155,000 clerical workers constitute about 4 percent
o f the Nation’s clerical force; about 3 percent of all those engaged
in domestic and personal service are between 16 and 18 years of age.
It is apparent, therefore, that the portion o f the population under
18 years of age could easily be spared from the Nation’s productive
forces, if it appeared socially desirable for them to engage in other
activities or for the jobs to be held by adults.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHAPTER IL— CHILDREN’S WORK AND WORKING
CONDITIONS
I f it were possible to take thousands o f snapshots, in different
parts o f the country, o f the two million boys and girls under 18 at
work, what would they show? A great variety o f tasks on farms,
in factories, offices, warehouses, on the streets. Would these tasks
resemble those on which adults were engaged? Yes, and no. Chil
dren are not found doing responsible or highly skilled work, and
rarely are they placed in jobs in which they will learn to do such
work and gradually advance into it. Adults, also, necessarily per
form most o f the heavy and dangerous tasks, but many boys and
girls will be found at work that exposes them to some o f the chief
industrial hazards.
How does the work which children now do compare with what
they did during the early stages of the industrial revolution? (See
pp. 62 and 63.) In general it is lighter work, hours are shorter than
they used to be, working conditions for both adults and children
have improved, and the children themselves are not permitted to
go to work so young. However, the maximum hours that children
are legally permitted to work are still very long, and even these
standards are frequently violated. The wages paid to children are
exceedingly low and are more easily depressed than the wages of
adults. During periods o f prolonged industrial depression when
adult workers can be secured at almost any wage, the demand for
child labor shrinks except in the very worst o f the “ sweated ”
industries.
MANUFACTURING, TRADE, TRANSPORTATION, AND CLERICAL
OCCUPATIONS

The occupations of children in towns and cities depend to a very
large extent upon the opportunities opened to them by the economic
life o f the community— its industrial or commercial activities, the
size and type o f the establishments, and their hiring policies. Much
also depends upon the State child-labor law and on the success of
the schools in holding the children.
MANUFACTURING AND MECHANICAL OCCUPATIONS

No longer do large numbers o f children man the factories as they
did in the early days of the industrial revolution; in fact, relatively
few children younger than 14 work in factories, but many children
between 14 and 18 years o f age are still so employed.
Comparatively few o f these children are engaged either in proc
esses requiring skill or in learning such processes, and their number
has steadily diminished. The 1930 census listed about 77,000 learn
ers or apprentices in skilled trades, o f whom about 39,000 (50 per
cent) were under 18 years of age—most of them 16 or 17. Ten years
21

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOR

ago there were 45 percent more “ apprentices ” , and a much higher
proportion of them, 72 percent, were under 18. About 20,000 boys
aged 16 and 17 were listed by the 1930 census as pursuing skilled
trades— which probably means that they were assistants or helpers
if not regular apprentices. The trades that chiefly use apprentices
are carpenters, electricians, tinsmiths, plumbers, blacksmiths, boiler
makers, machinists, printers, and bookbinders. The only trades in
which any number o f girls are apprenticed are the rapidly disap
pearing trades o f dressmaker and milliner.
In general boys and girls under 18 employed in industry work as
laborers and semiskilled operatives. In 1930 there were more than
400,000 laborers and operatives in manufacturing industries aged
10 to 17, inclusive. O f these, about 85 percent were 16 and 17 years
o f age, 14 percent were 14 and 15 years, and 1 percent were under
14 years o f age.
Among the manufacturing industries canneries have always been
large employers o f children, although in recent years young workers
have been to some extent displaced by the introduction o f more com
plicated machinery and by legislative regulation. The operation
o f canneries is highly seasonal, depending upon the ripening o f fruit
and vegetable crops, or the fishing, oyster, and shrimp seasons.
Work may last in one locality for a few weeks or for several
months. Much of it is intermittent, with heavy rush periods when
a perishable shipment arrives. Many canneries are scattered in
rural districts, often isolated and difficult for inspectors to reach.
Although some canneries rely mainly on local labor, a great deal
o f it is migratory, coming from long or short distances and
resembling the migratory labor used in agriculture.
Boys and girls under 16 and even under 14 years o f age are used
on many canning operations, including peeling tomatoes and fruits,
snipping beans, inspecting peas, husking, trimming, and sorting
corn, and hulling, cleaning, and sorting berries. Standing in front
o f the moving belt which carries the filled cans to the closing machine,
they guide the cans and add ingredients to the contents. Boys do
many odd jobs, including carrying pails o f vegetables, fruits, or
waste, sometimes lifting them on and off tables; they also stack
cans, empty and full, label cans, make boxes and crates, and remove
cans from the closing machines. Boys and girls seldom operate
machines, pack the product, or do either the heavy unskilled or the
skilled or supervisory work. But they are brought into close prox
imity to machines which may be dangerous because either unguarded
or imperfectly guarded; the work may involve 10 to 12 hours o f con
tinuous standing, on wet, sloppy floors, enveloped by steam from the
cooking. Wet floors and dark rickety stairs constitute an accident;
hazard, particularly to children carrying full pails, or boxes of cans.
Hours are often long and irregular, and workers are exposed to>
infection because they sustain many cuts, bruises, and sores from
juices and acids in the course of the work.
Although canneries in some States have been given special con
cessions under the child-labor laws, this has been due to pressure
exerted by the industry, and not to the relative desirability o f
cannery work for children.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

WORK AND WORKING CONDITIONS

The textile industries have always been important employers o f
children. (See p. 68.) As late as 1900 children under 16 constituted
25 per cent o f the labor force o f cotton mills in the South. But in
creasing complexity and speed of machinery, together with childlabor legislation and public opinion, have tended to displace chil
dren in this industry. Now boys are employed mainly as doffers in
cotton and silk mills (removing the full bobbins from the spinning
frame and replacing them with empty on es); girls under 16 are em
ployed as doffers in the spinning room and as battery hands on the
newer type o f looms, on which they remove the empty bobbins from
the battery and replace them with full bobbins. Formerly many
girls under 16 were employed as spinners and some as weavers, but
the number has decreased with the introduction of new methods.1
The stretch-out system, giving each operative more spindles or looms
to tend, both requires fast and efficient workers, and by displacing
skilled workers, increases the adult labor supply. Both factors tend
to eliminate children from these jobs.
Silk mills rely more than cotton mills on girls’ labor. Girls of 15.
16, and 17 are employed in considerable numbers in winding, dou
bling, spinning, reeling, and lacing. (See footnote below.) In silk
weaving they are employed in quilling. According to the census in
1900, 10 percent o f all silk-mill operatives were under 16; by 1920
this proportion had been reduced to 8 percent; and in 1930, to 3
percent.
The silk-hosiery industry employs a high proportion of women and
girls, and in general the workers in the industry are young. Young
girls enter the industry as ravelers and turners and wareroom
workers, and boys may begin as knitters’ helpers and learn to operate
knitting machines.
In the garment industries children find employment chiefly on the
nonsewing operations— cleaning, finishing, examining, bundling,
tagging, carrying bundles to and from operators and pressers, and
in stockroom work. Some operate button machines. In corset fac
tories, shirt factories, and in small contract shops making women’s
or children’s clothing, young girls sometimes operate power sewing
machines or pressing machines, the former a skilled operation calling
for speed and dexterity, the latter, heavy work involving constant
standing and exposure to heat and steam.
Children are employed in numerous other industries, including the
manufacture o f candy and other food products, cigars and tobacco,
shoes, lumber, and furniture, and clay, glass, stone, and metal prod
ucts. In general the work that children under 16 perform in manu
facturing industries is the least skilled work; much o f it consists
in wrapping, boxing, packing, cleaning, and sweeping; carrying
work to or away from machines; and miscellaneous work in stock
and shipping rooms. In small establishments children may be em
ployed to do odd jobs, a combination of errand boy and general fac
tory helper. Many boys and girls o f 16 and 17 years do substantially
1 Both in cotton and in silk _mills operations connected with spinning the thread involve
tending frames to which bobbins or skeins are attached. The operative must be alert to
detect breakage and must mend the broken threads. The work calls fo r speed and
deftness.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOE

similar work. But more of them than o f the younger children have
more skilled and responsible jobs, such as inspecting, hand finishing,
and machine operating.
The operation of machines, particularly power-driven machines,
is a source o f great danger to boys and girls employed in industry.
Comparatively few o f those 14 and 15 years old, but considerable
numbers o f those 16 and 17, are employed on machines—the number
so employed and the risk varying with the type of industry. Accord
ing to the scattered information available, collected for the White
House Conference, machinery caused the largest proportion of acci
dents to boys and girls of 16 and 17, and the second largest propor
tion of accidents to those under 16 (table 7). State legislation has
made some progress in protecting minors, particularly those under
16, from some of the most dangerous occupations, as is indicated
by the fact that minors injured while illegally employ sustain more
serious injuries than do those injured in the course o f legal employ
ment. However, minors o f 16 and 17 years are still inadequately
protected from machine hazards; 31 percent o f the total accidents
to this group being due to machinery, compared to 18 percent for
younger workers and 13 percent for workers o f all ages.
T a b l e 7 .—

Causes of industrial accidents to workers of all ages and to to y s and
girls of specified ages in five S ta tes1
Accidents to ¡noys and girls
Accidents to
workers of
all ages

16 and 17 years
of age

Cause
Number

Percent
distri
bution

Number

Percent
distri
bution

Under 16 years
of age

Number

Percent
distri
bution

887

5,413

Total------------- ------------ ----------------

278,810

Cause reported....... ..................— ..............

277,702

100

5,323

100

851

100

Machinery---------- ------------------- .........

35,611

1,661

153

Power driven___________________
Other------ ------ ------------ -------------

15, 778
19,833

6
7

1,052
609

20
11

83
70

10
8

27,884
46,077
81,367
86,763

10
17
29
31

583
650
1,113
1,316

11
12
21
25

240
130
132
196

28
15
16
23

Falls______________________________
Handling objects-.------ ------------- -----All others ...........................................
..
f
j

1,108

1 Figures for California, niinois, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, for 1-year periods, 1926 to 1929.
Compensable cases in Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island; tabulatable cases (that is, those
resulting in death, permanent disability, or disability lasting one or more days) in California. See Child
Labor; report of the subcommittee on child labor of the White House Conference on Child Health and
Protection, pp. 38-46 (Century Co., New York, 1932).
* 'i_
..
,
2 Includes explosions, electricity, fires, hot substances; poisonous, corrosive substances; occupational
diseases; stepping on or striking against objects; falling objects; hand tools; animals; and miscellaneous
causes.

Many o f the machines operated by children are power-sewing and
textile machinery—types which do not involve great risks for adults
but which when managed by children may be the cause o f many
minor injuries. Girls and boys between 16 and 18 years are fre-

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

WORK AND WORKING CONDITIONS

i
quently, and younger ones are sometimes, employed at machines dan
gerous even for adults to operate because they require dexterity and
a high degree of muscular coordination for safe operation—for in
stance, punch presses, drills, lathes, and polishers in metal working;
saws in woodworking; dough brakes and cracker-making machinery
in food, confectionery plants, and bakeries; and cutting and stamp
ing machines in leather working. Accidents occur in connection
with oiling and cleaning as well as operating machines. Hundreds,
perhaps thousands, of young workers are injured every year through
such employment, both legal and illegal.
Even when children are hired for relatively safe jobs, their mere
presence in a workshop or factory may involve them in accidents,
and this is particularly true o f the younger group. Curiosity, awk
wardness, or rashness may bring them into too close contact with
belts and gears and cutting edges. Children have been injured as
a result o f being asked to tend an unfamiliar machine for a few
minutes, or to assist on repair jobs, sometimes while the machinery
is in motion, or to bring an elevator up or down a floor or two.
Others may be struck by falling objects, flying splinters, or moving
machine parts, or injured in the course of lifting and carrying bulky
and heavy objects. Handling objects is the second major cause of
accidents to minors of 16 and 17, causing 21 percent o f the accidents
sustained by them, and causing 16 percent o f the accidents sustained
by children o f 14 and 15 years of age. Twelve percent o f the acci
dents to the older group, and 15 percent o f the accidents to the
younger group, are caused by falls.
In order to judge how many young workers are exposed to indus
trial hazards, it would be necessary to have much more specific infor
mation about their occupations than is now furnished by the census.
Most o f the workers engaged in manufacturing are classified as op
eratives or laborers, and the distinction between them is not based
wholly on whether the work is done by hand or by machine. Thus
it is impossible to separate all those operating machines, and even
less possible to enumerate all those engaged on hazardous machines
and processes. Similarly in transportation, trade, and other indus
try groups the occupations specified are not sufficiently detailed or
exact for this purpose. Any approximation of the numbers em
ployed in hazardous occupations, based on the census, must, for this
reason, be too low. However, using the recommendations of the
advisory committee on employment o f minors in hazardous occupa
tion (see p. 47) as a guide, the following list has been compiled from
the 1930 and 1920 Censuses o f Occupations,2 to indicate roughly the
numbers in hazardous work. Group I shows minors under 18 years
o f age employed in industries or occupations which were o f such a
nature that the committee disapproved o f any employment connected
with them. Group I I shows the numbers employed in industries
known to include many occupations that the committee wished to see
prohibited for minors under 18. The figures for both groups are for
the age group 10 to 17, inclusive; very few, however, were under 16.
* Fourteenth Census o f the United States, 1920, vol. 4, Population, Occupations, pp.
482-487. U.S. Bureau o f the Census, W ashington, 1 9 23; F ifteenth Census o f the United
States, 1930, vol. 5, Population, pp. 352-357.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOR

#
1920

Occupationor industry
G roup I

Total______

—

[lumbermen, raftsmen, and woodchoppers
______ ______
F.vtrn.etion of minerals

Firemen (except, locomotive and fire department,)

Operatives and laborers (not otherwise specified) in:

Blast fnmae.es and steel rolling mills
Saw and planing mills

Electric light, and power plants
Laundry operatives (except laborers and deliverymen)---Chauffeurs and truck and tractor drivers

G roup I I

Operatives and laborers in:
Slaughter and pa,eking houses

Other metal factories

____

1930

165, 335

91, 981

9, 003
50, 401
1, 707
2, 025
1, 511
2, 474
1, 384
3, 721

5, 025
19', 596
505
974
434
290
712
4, 460

1,054
788
1, 643
15, 055
9; 289
23', 688
7; 821
1, 493
9; 727
' 779
9, 753
802
8, 323
2, 894

584
364
836
4, 973
' 848
15, 736
3, 515
1, 016
3, 875
181
11, 872
385
13, 431
2, 369

21, 707

14, 574

759
5, 634
2, 537
' 334
757
661
5, 341
1, 545
3, 576
563

535
3, 530
' 994
160
434
194
3, 332
i; 297
1, 726
2, 372

Altogether more than 100,000 young persons under 18 years of age
are engaged in these various types o f dangerous work. In 1920 the
number so engaged was much larger, 187,000. As the great majority
o f the risks shown in the list are in manufacturing industries, it is
reasonable to assume that a considerable part of the reduction since
1920 is due merely to contraction o f employment, which has affected
manufacturing more than other lines o f work.
Even where the risk o f accident in factories is slight, the work
may be unfavorable to the best physical and mental development of
growing children on account o f strained or fatiguing posture, too
much standing, or too long hours of sitting, bending over the work,
poor lighting, stuffy workrooms, noise and vibration of machinery,
and other elements of strain.3 Industry has made great progress in
* A study o f the health o f about 2,000 working girls between the ages o f 14 and 17 in a
New York continuation school emphasized the effects o f excessive fatigue and o f speeding
or w orking under great pressure, as on piece work in factories or in rush work in depart
ment stores, in laying the basis fo r future hyperthyroidisrrii and neurosis.
(R eport on
M edical and Health Service at W est Side Continuation School, by Sophie Rabinoff. De
partm ent <?f Health, New York; City, 1931.)

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

WORK AND W ORKING CONDITIONS

recent years in improving working conditions, for managers are com
ing to realize that poor conditions mean inefficiency and poor output.
Modern, improved working conditions, however, usually are found
together with employment policies that weed out the youngest work
ers, in accordance with either the child-labor laws or the principles of
maximum industrial efficiency; conversely, reliance upon the cheapest
form o f labor often goes hand in hand with backwardness in other
respects.
TRADE, TRANSPORTATION, AND CLERICAL OCCUPATIONS

Even more important numerically in the aggregate than that in
manufacturing and mechanical industries is the employment afforded
to young workers in connection with stores, banks, telephone, tele
graph, and telephone systems, and offices o f all kinds. Much o f this
is simple clerical work; much o f it consists in running errands and
delivering parcels, both indoor and outdoor. Some of it involves
selling; some of it is laboring work, practically indistinguishable
from laboring jobs in manufacturing. Boys are chiefly employed as
telegraph messengers, as deliverymen for stores, bakeries, laundries,
as helpers on trucks, as office boys to run outdoor errands, as sales
clerks or general helpers in stores, as porters and helpers in stores,
warehouses, and office buildings. Girls are employed mainly as book
keepers and cashiers, stenographers and typists, as clerks and sales
girls and stock girls in stores, as bundle wrappers and indoor mes
sengers, as telephone operators.
Telegraph messengers, delivery
boys, and helpers on trucks, especially in large cities, are exposed to
injury by motor vehicles and to traffic hazards. Vehicles cause the
largest proportion of the accidents to children under 16 and the most
severe accidents both to the age group under 16 and to the group
16 and 17 years o f age. (See table 7.) Boys’ work in stores, ware
houses, and so forth, is also apt to involve lifting or carrying heavy
weights, which may strain heart or muscles or cause hernia or flatfoot. The chief disadvantages which may be connected with the
work performed by girls arise out of confinement in poorly lighted
or ill-ventilated rooms and on certain jobs long hours o f constant
standing. Close work at high speed may cause eye strain, excessive
fatigue, nervous disorders; postural defects may develop or become
aggravated by bad seating arrangements or by too long standing or
by monotonous and cramping movements.
Growing children need fresh air, sunlight, recreation, proper
exercise, and sleep, and these needs are often interfered with by the
conditions under which work must be done, and by the fact that they
are at work for many hours each day. A health survey of approxi
mately 400 working children under 16 years of age in New York
City, conducted in 1924, found large numbers of children with such
defects as bad posture, flat feet, poor eyesight, digestive disturbances.
Two thirds of the children were doing office or general-messenger
work, one third factory work. H alf of the children had some physi
cal defect that was intensified by the requirements o f their jobs;
more than one fourth of the defects were judged to be directly ac
centuated by the conditions under which the child worked. For ex
ample, 90 percent of the boys and 80 percent of the girls whose
posture was defective were likely to have this defect intensified by
182342°— 33----- 3

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOR

their w ork; 73 percent o f the cases of flat-foot among the boys were
apt to be aggravated because the children had to be on their feet
a great part of the time. One fifth of the girls and two thirds of the
boys whose strength was below par, were engaged in work which
imposed an undue strain upon them. It was estimated that most of
the defects found could have been cured by treatment, yet if they
were allowed to continue uncorrected, probably many of these chil
dren would ultimately develop more serious and permanent
disabilities.4
INDUSTRIAL HOME WORK

Thousands of families do industrial home work, which is exten
sively carried on in many States. Industries using this form of
labor include the manufacture of men’s, women’s, and children’s
clothing, neckwear, artificial flowers, feathers, trimmings, novelties,
stationery, lamp shades, jewelry, lace, dolls, and toys. Style changes
and technological changes may reduce the amount of work given
out in any one line, but this is usually compensated for by the spring
ing up o f new types. The work is performed mainly by married
women and young children; in some families fathers, older children,
and relatives living with the family may be pressed into service,
though to a much less extent than was common 20 or 30 years ago,
when entire families worked from early morning until late at night
in their own crowded homes as if they had been in factories. Legal
regulation and inspection have made progress in certain States in
checking the worst abuses. (See p. 50.)
It is impossible to ascertain the exact numbers of children who
assist in home work, but the workers themselves often report that
they could not earn enough without the children’s assistance to make
the work worth while. In New Jersey in 1925 the Children’s Bureau
found that 63 percent of the home workers in the families studied
were children under 16 years of age, and 27 percent were the mothers
o f these children. Home work was a family enterprise, the mother
initiating and directing the work. Sixty percent of all the children
between the ages of 6 and 14 years of age in these families, and 71
percent o f all the 14- and 15-year-old children, worked more or less
regularly. O f the 1,063 children who reported time o f work during
the school year 48 percent worked on school days, after school and
in the evening, and 47 percent worked both on school days and on
Saturdays. H alf the children reporting daily hours of work, worked
at least 2 hours, and 26 percent worked 3 hours or more. In addi
tion some o f the girls performed work about the house.
Reports for 1931 from the Pennsylvania bureau charged with
administering the home-work regulations indicate that the principal
home workers, usually the mothers, were assisted by the children in
the family, but only to a slight extent by unemployed adults. When
there are numerous young children in the family there is always
present the temptation to set them to work helping the home worker.
The very simplest operations may be given to the youngest members.
Children even o f preschool age have been found at work where in
dustrial home work is taken in; in Massachusetts, Rhode Island,
Pennsylvania, and New Jersey the younger children were engaged in
*•The Health o f the W orking Child.
Bulletin No. 134. Albany, 1924,

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

New York State Department o f Labor Special

W ORK AND WORKING CONDITIONS

such work as stringing tags, taping underwear, sorting buttons, pull
ing basting threads, carding hooks and eyes, safety pins, and buttons,
and putting cards in envelopes. Somewhat older children can do
such work as making artificial flowers and feather ornaments, as
sembling, pasting, or stringing, and doing simple kinds of sewing,
beading, and embroidering. Children are often kept up until late
at night at such work, foregoing sleep and playtime. Children are
also used to call for and return work to the factories, a job that may
involve carrying heavy bundles considerable distances.
STREET TRADES

Important part-time occupations of younger children include sell
ing and delivering newspapers, peddling, and shoe-shining. More
than half of the almost 40,000 persons listed by the census as “ news
boys ” are under 16, and 27 percent are under 14 years old. Many
children who engage in this occupation' are not reported by the
census, because they are younger than 10, or their parents fail to
report them as working, or the census enumerator does not regard
them as regularly employed, although they may work several hours
a day in addition to attending school. Studies made by the Chil
dren’s Bureau within the last decade in seven cities showed that the
average age o f street workers was about 12 years; in every city a
few children of 6 and 7 were found selling papers and other articles,
and many said that they had started at about this age. A study
made in New York City in 1931 showed that 17 percent of newsboys
selling illegally were under 12 years, the legal minimum age, and a
few were between 6 and 10 years o f age.5
The hours of boy newspaper sellers in the Children’s Bureau
studies averaged 16 per week,6 which, when added to 25 hours o f
school, makes a 40-hour work week. This average covers a wide
range of variation. Several boys were found whose total ran to
more than 70 hours a week. On school days many children sold
papers from the close o f school until 7 or 8 in the evening. Some
worked until 10, and a few until exceedingly late hours on certain
nights a week. Sometimes boys who sell the late night or early
morning editions to theater crowds sleep in the newspaper-distribut
ing rooms. The child who engages in such work is apt to be retarded
at school for sheer lack o f sleep; his unusual freedom from family
restraint, irregular and late hours, and association with all sorts of
influences in crowded business sections, cheap restaurants, and news
paper offices expose him to undesirable and even vicious influences.
Newsboys have been found to be particularly subject to flat footedness, spinal curvature, and other postural defects which become ag
gravated by long hours o f standing on hard sidewalks, and the
carrying o f heavy bundles of papers slung over one shoulder.7
Newspaper delivering or carrying is not so fatiguing nor so excit
ing and irregular as newspaper selling. The carrier works in a
residential neighborhood, often his own. But morning routes may
mean excessively early rising and loss o f sleep.
5 Shulman, Harry M .: Newsboys o f New Y o r k ; a study o f their legal and Illegal work
ing activities during 1931, p. 28. New York Child Labor Committee, N.Y., 1932.
6 Child Workers on City Streets, p. 11. U.S. Children’ s Bureau Publication No. 188.
W ashington, 1928.
7 Report o f the M edical Department o f the Burroughs Newsboys Foundation for Year
1931-1932. Boston.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOR

The present depression is believed to have increased the number o f
child street traders in some cities—especially newspaper sellers, boot
blacks, canvassers, and peddlers. Employers are offering commis
sion selling jobs to young boys, and as a preliminary are coaching
them in hard-luck stories wnich they are told to repeat at every
door. This is one o f the worst forms of child exploitation connected
with the depression.
DOMESTIC SERVICE

Girls under 16 are often hired as nursemaids, or as “ mothers’
helpers ”— a euphemism for general housework. Some o f these chil
dren are today being offered board and lodging by families who do
not have adequate space and who expect the “ helper ” to sleep in
the kitchen, the corridor, or the cellar— if not to share a room with
the younger children of the family. The number of girls of 16 and
17 in domestic service is increasing rapidly (by 45 percent between
1920 and 1930). During the depression they have been brought in
as cheap labor, displacing better-paid and better-trained workers.
Hours in domestic service in private homes are unregulated and
are known to be in many cases unreasonably long. Hours of women
and girls in hotels and restaurants are sometimes but by no means
always regulated. The New York State junior employment office
reported, in February 1933, that more than three fourths of the
domestic-service openings offered such wretched pay and living con
ditions that the office refused to fill them, although it was literally
swamped with applicants for jobs.
WORK IN AGRICULTURE

Agriculture is the most important single source of child employ
ment. There are three main types o f child workers in agriculture;
the child who works on the home farm ; the farm child who works
out for hire on a neighbor’s farm, either by himself or as part o f the
family group; and the migratory child laborer, who moves about
with his family following the crops, often having no permanent
home. Some children go out daily from cities or towns to work on
truck farms. Crops on which child labor is extensively used include
cotton, tobacco, beets, truck, berries and other small fruit.
The work o f children on the home farm is generally considered a
practical method o f developing a sense of family responsibility while
the child is learning useful skills under healthful open-air conditions.
But much of the work performed by children in agriculture pre
sents a very different picture. The growth o f large-scale commercial
ized agriculture has led to the hiring out o f thousands of children
either as members o f the family group or with strangers to work on
truck farms, in beet fields, and in gathering fruits and berries,
under conditions often as undesirable as any found in industrial
employments. Tenant farmers and share-croppers in many parts o f
the United States where the single cash crop system prevails, are in
much the same position as hired laborers. They and their children
work excessively long hours, to make the barest o f livings. Their
children are exposed to all the hardships incident to hired day labor.
Children who regularly migrate with their families “ f o l l o w i n g the
crops,” lead an unsettled life, lacking in educational opportunities,
recreational facilities, and healthful surroundings.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

WORK AND W ORKING CONDITIONS

In the regions in which cotton is grown practically all the farm
children are set to work in the cotton fields very young. A survey
made by the Children’s Bureau in Texas showed that 42 percent
o f the white children in the district studied began field work when
they were less than 10 years old ; one fourth started work when only
8 years o f age.8 Negro children commonly started work younger
than did the white. Most of the children included in this study
worked at least 8 hours a day; many o f them worked 12 and 14 hours.
Children under 14 work at practically all the operations connected
with cotton growing—from preparing the land for planting to cotton
picking. Boys of 11 and 12 were found doing their share of plowing,
harrowing, and planting. Later in the season they did hand hoeing
and chopping; that is, cutting out superfluous plants with a hoe.
Cotton picking lasts from late August or early September to Novem
ber or December. Children of 8, and even younger, are deft cotton
pickers. They can walk between the rows, lugging a big sack to hold
the cotton. Older children crawl along dragging the sack after them
by a shoulder strap.
In the tobacco regions children are also useful on many opera
tions—hand cultivating, “ suckering ” the plants, and examining the
leaves for worms. A t harvest time they assist in picking the leaves;
some managers insist small children make better pickers than adults.
Children work in housing the tobacco, which involves lifting heavy
weights; and in stripping, sorting, and tying the dried leaves.
Shade-grown tobacco is grown under a cloth covering, and is picked
by young workers crawling between the rows. The atmosphere is
close and hot—sometimes the temperature is as high as 98 degrees.
In the tobacco sheds girls string the leaves on laths, standing all
day at work.
Considerable numbers o f children work intensively during cer
tain months in the year in the western and mid-western sugar-beet
fields. This is probably the most exhausting work done by chil
dren anywhere, because o f long hours, strained positions, intense,
heat, exposure to wet, and the speed required in certain operations.]
Thinning is done when the plants are still small, by boys and girlsJ
crawling down the rows on their hands and knees, working at high
speed, for 11 or 12, and sometimes even for 14 and 15, hours a
day. The next great pressure occurs during the harvest. Chil
dren work at pulling and topping. The topper carries a large knife
with which he knocks off the caked dirt and removes the leaves.
This process means constant stooping and lifting, and a child, it
has been estimated, will handle on the average about 4 tons o f beets
and dirt a day. A 10-hour day is common during harvesting. In
the fall, when the beet tops are drenched with heavy dew and frost,
the workers get soaked, with the result of chapped and cracked
hands, colds, and rheumatism.
In addition to their work on these special crops, many children
both in beet and in cotton-growing districts were found doing a
variety o f other farm work. For example, both boys and girls
take part in threshing and haying, help cultivate various crops, tend
stock, and, more rarely, load beet wagons. Some o f the boys 12
8
W elfare o f Children in Cotton-Growing Areas o f Texas, p. 7.
Publication No. 134. W ashington, 1924.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

U.S. Children’s Bureau

CHII^D LABOIJ .

years o f age and older do heavier Work,-such as plowing. Although
it is usually the farmers’ children who do the miscellaneous farm
work, it is not uncommon for the contract laborers’ children to do
other jobs. In the intervals between the work on the beet crop, for in
stance, many weed onions, gather potatoes, and hoe beans.9 In the
cotton regions children also cut wood, hoe and pick corn, cultivate,
pitch, load, and haul sorghum, and work on other field crops.
On grain farms the Children’s Bureau found that children do a
good deal o f plowing, harrowing, disking, cultivating, hoeing, and
hauling. In general only the older children do the heavier work,
but in grain farming in West Virginia and Tennessee young chil
dren engaged in almost all the operations. Much of this work is
heavy and involves great physical strain for young children; some
processes are dangerous.
.
.
Considerable numbers of children are injured each year m farm
work by machinery, animals, motor vehicles, and other causes. The
Children’s Bureau, in a study o f North Dakota children, found that
104 o f 845 children had sustained injuries while at work at some
time prior to the inquiry. Fifty-four of these accidents had oc
curred in occupations connected with animals, and 50 in occupations
which involved handling farm machinery. Statistics are too inade
quate to permit of any comparisons between accidents in agricultural
and nonagricultural pursuits.
The labor o f children is used extensively on the onion crop, in
truck farming, particularly for weeding, and in picking berries, small
fruits, and all sorts o f vegetables—lettuce, spinach, asparagus, kale,
egg-plant, tomatoes, peas, beans. A t harvest time thousands o f
transient families are hired for this w ork; a large proportion o f the
children who hire out in agriculture are migratory workers. T o
gether with their families they follow the crops from South to North
and South again. Some families devote several months in the year,
others the whole year, to these migrations. The increasing use o f the
automobile has multiplied the number of migrants. Equipped with
an old automobile and a tent many families spend the summer wan
dering from place to place, the whole family working as casual
laborers.
Children in migratory families are usually subject to more hard
ships than other agricultural child workers. These families are often
housed in miserably insanitary, crowded shacks, without proper
cooking or sanitary facilities, and without privacy; since the camps
are seasonal and impermanent, little or no provision is made for
taking care o f the children too young to work, and only seldom is
schooling or recreation provided for any age group. These migra
tions often interfere with regular school attendance, for some parents
must take their children out of school weeks or months before schools
close in order to start their travels, returning perhaps a month or two
late in the fall. The children of the poorer families who keep on
the move, not acquiring residence in any one place, grow up illiterate.
Migratory children are often not considered desirable associates for
local school children, and few communities are willing to provide
separate school facilities.
9
Children in Agriculture, p. 13.
ington, 1929.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

U.S. Children’ s Bureau Publication No. 187.

W ash

LIBRARY
ofTexas

In recent years, west ofOfcfeg&EStatowi a [i*gb proportion of
migrants have been Mexicans, some o f whom travel* annually from
the border as far north as Montana and back again. California,
Colorado, Utah, Oregon, and Washington use Mexican migratory
labor in great numbers. California is experimenting with Statesubsidized traveling schools for migratory children, and Utah is
making special efforts to provide school facilities for children in beet
fields.
Children who work on their parent’s farm, when it well stocked
and when diversified agriculture is practiced, may acquire both skill
and a fondness for farm work by starting to work young, and learn
ing all the various processes as they grow older. But even under
the most favorable conditions it cannot be claimed that such work
takes the place of schooling, or that it should be allowed to curtail
the school year, and the exposure o f the child at times to accidents
and serious disablement cannot be overlooked. Insofar as the prin
cipal commercial crops are concerned—beets, cotton, onions, tobacco,
grain, berries, fruit, and truck—it would be no social loss but a
great physical and educational gain to children, whether resident
or migratory, i f child labor were no longer required for cultivation
and harvesting.
WORK IN MINING

Few children under 16 are now employed in the extraction of
minerals,10 but the trapper boy— in both bituminous and anthracite
coal mines— was formerly a familiar figure, and young boys were
extensively employed as breaker boys in the anthracite collieries.11
It is the trapper boy’s duty to sit beside the ventilation doors, in
the interior o f the mine, opening and shutting the doors as miners
and coal cars pass through— a monotonous and none too healthful,
or even safe, occupation. Sometimes the trapper boy is called upon
to leave his post and help in the dangerous work connected with the
handling of mine cars. Breaker boys sit or stand at moving belts
or chutes over which the coal passes, and as it passes they pick out
the lumps of slate. This occupation involves continuous bending
and stretching and lacerations of the hands, and the dusty atmos
phere is unhealthful.
Although the number of children under 16 in coal mining has
strikingly declined in recent years, attention now centers upon the
workers of 16 and IT years old, of whom there are still 15,000. A
study made in Pennsylvania in 1930 showed that many boys of
16 and 17 years of age were doing work connected with the loading
and hauling o f coal, and thus were exposed to the chief hazards
o f coal mining, namely being struck by mine cars or falling rock
and coal.

Car handling is heavy work and involves great danger of strain in addition
to the more obvious accident hazards connected with moving mine cars.
* * *
variety of work done by car handlers and other haulage workers
includes driving mules, pushing and moving cars by hand, retracking cars
which become derailed, spragging cars, coupling cars, roping pulleys, throwing
switches, and door tending. The driving of mules or horses which haul mine
10 In 1930, 1,184 children between 10 and 16 years were employed in or about mines,
oil wells and quarries, and 18,412 between 16 and 18 years o f age.
11 In 1920, 3,000 boys under 16 were employed in coal mining in P en n sylva n ia; in 1930
only 280. Pennsylvania is the principal anthracite mining State.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOR

cars, where electric power is not'u sed'for hauling, is one of the most common
car-handling occupations for boys and one in which a large variety of car
handling operations are done.12

One out o f every 7 boys under 18 employed in coal mining sus
tained an injury during the year; 1 in every 5 sustained a severe in
jury entailing the loss of at least 30 days or causing a partial perma
nent disability, or death. On the basis of these findings, the Pennsyl
vania Industrial Board prohibited boys under 18 from working at
certain specified hazardous occupations in mines.
READING REFERENCES
W h ite H ouse C onference

on C hild H ealth and P rotection : Child L abor,
report of the subcommittee on child labor. Century Co., New York, 1932.
Children ’ s B ureau , U.S. D epartment of L abor :
Child Labor and the W ork of Mothers in the Beet Fields of Colorado and
Michigan. Publication No. 115. Washington, 1923.
Child Labor on Maryland Truck Farms. Publication No. 123. Washing
ton, 1923.
.
Child Labor in North Dakota. Publication No. 129. Washington, 1923.
Child Labor and the W ork of Mothers on Norfolk Truck Farms. Publica
tion No. 130. Washington, 1924.
W ork of Children on Truck and Small-Fruit Farms in Southern New
Jersey. Publication No. 132. Washington, 1924.
The W elfare of Children in Cotton-Growing Areas o f Texas. Publication
No. 134. Washington, 1924.
Child Labor in Fruit and Hop Growing Districts of the Northern Pacific
Coast. Publication No. 151. Washington, 1925.
Child Labor in Representative Tobacco-Growing Areas. Publication No.
155. Washington, 1926.
W ork of Children on Illinois Farms. Publication No. 168. Washington,
1926.
Children in Agriculture. Publication No. 187. Washington, 1929.
The Working Children of Boston. Publication No. 89. Washington, 1922.
Child Labor and the W ork of Mothers in Oyster and Shrimp Canning
Communities on the Gulf Coast. Publication No. 98. Washington, 1922.
Industrial Home W ork of Children; a study made in Providence, Paw
tucket, and Central Falls, R .I. Publication No. 100. Washington, 1922.
Child Labor and the W elfare o f Children in an Anthracite Coal Mining
District. Publication No. 106. Washington, 1922.
The W elfare o f Children in Bituminous Coal Mining Communities in
W est Virginia. Publication No. 117. Washington, 1923.
Minors in Automobile and Metal-Manufacturing Industries in Michigan.
Publication No. 126. Washington, 1923.
Children in Street W ork. Publication No. 183. Washington, 1928.
Child Labor in New Jersey— Part 2, Children Engaged in Industrial Home
Work. Publication No. 185. Washington, 1928.
Child Workers on City Streets. Publication No. 188. Washington, 1929.
Child Labor in New Jersey— Part 1, Employment of School Children. Pub
lication No. 192. Washington, 1929.
Children in Fruit and Vegetable Canneries; a survey of conditions of
work in seven States. Publication No. 198. Washington, 1930.
Child Labor in New Jersey— Part 3, The Working Children o f Newark and
Paterson. Publication No. 199. Washington, 1931.
Employed Boys and Girls in Milwaukee. Publication No. 213. Washington,
1932.
The Illegally Employed Minor and the Workmen’s Compensation Law.
Publication No. 214. Washington, 1932.
Employed Boys and Girls in Rochester and Utica, N.Y. Publication No.
218. Washington, 1933.
Ormsbee, H azel Gr a n t : The Young Employed Girl. Wom an’s Press, New
York, 1927.

12M onthly Bulletin (Pennsylvania Department o f Labor and In d u stry ), vol, 19, N q, §
(A ugust 1932), p. 10,

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

WORK AND W ORKING CONDITIONS

New Y ork State D epartment

L abor, B ureau

W omen

I ndustry :

The Health of the Working Child.

Special Bulletin No. 134. 1924.
N ational C hild L abor Com m ittee : Migratory Child Workers, by George B.
Mangold and Lillian B. Hill.
(Reprint.) New York, 1929.

P ennsylvania D epartment

L abor

and

I n du stry :

Migratory Child Workers and School Attendance. Special Bulletin No.
26. Harrisburg, 1928.
Fourteen and Fifteen Year Old Children in Industry. Special Bulletin No.
21. Harrisburg, 1927.
Industrial Home Work and Child Labor. Special Bulletin No. 11. Harris
burg, 1926.
Industrial Home W ork in Pennsylvania, by Agnes M. H . Byrnes. Harris
burg, 1920.
The Trend o f Industrial Home W ork in Pennsylvania, in Labor and
Industry, vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1930), pp. 3-6.
Industrial Home W ork in Pennsylvania, in Monthly Bulletin, vol. 19, no.
11 (November 1932), pp. 3 -6 .
Reducing the Hazards of Employment for Boys in the Coal Mining Indus
try, in Monthly Bulletin, vol. 19, no. 8 (August 1932), pp. 9-15.
Hours and Earnings of Men and Women in the Textile and Clothing In
dustries of Pennsylvania, in Monthly Bulletin, vol. 20, no. 2 (February
1933), p. 3.
N ew Y ork C hild L abor Committee : Newsboys of New Y o rk ; a study of their
legal and illegal work activities during 1931, by Harry M. Shulman.
L abor Statistics , B ureau of, U.S. D epartment of L abor : Report of Advisory
Committee on Employment of Minors in Hazardous Occupations, in Monthly
LaboT Review, vol. 35, no. 6 (December 1982), pp. 1315-1322.
N ew Y ork State I ndustrial Com m ission er : Changing Conditions in Home
W ork— Part II, Child Labor, in Industrial Bulletin, vol. 11, no. 7 (April
1932), pp. 205-206.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHAPTER III.— LEGAL REGULATION OF CHILD LABOR
The employment o f children is regulated at the present time di
rectly by State child-labor laws, indirectly by compulsory schoolattendance laws. Street trades are in some places covered by munic
ipal ordinances instead of by the child-labor law. Most of the time
between 1917 and 1922 child labor was to some extent regulated by
Federal law. After two such laws were successively declared un
constitutional by the Supreme Court, an amendment enabling Con
gress to legislate was launched, but to date has not been ratified by
the necessary number of States. (See p. 72.)
The protection that the State child-labor laws extend to children
is by no means uniform or comprehensive. It is piece-meal, uneven.
In general these laws set up certain standards with which a child
must comply before going to work, but all children do not come
within the scope o f the law. The standards that the child going to
work must meet relate to minimum age, amount of education, and
physical fitness. These standards vary from State to State, and
what is perhaps even more important, the occupations for which
these standards are required also vary. In practically all States the
child’s entrance into factory employment is thus regulated, in most
States his entrance into store work, and in many States the regula
tion extends to other commercial and industrial employments; but
only rarely are such standards required o f children going to work in
agriculture or domestic service, in which very large numbers o f young
children are employed. The most usual minimum age for the em
ployments specified in the child-labor law is 14, but generally a higher
minimum is fixed for entrance into occupations that are considered
hazardous.
After the child goes to work the child-labor law generally regu
lates his hours o f work and prohibits night work, but again this may
be done only for certain employment, principally factories and
stores. These provisions apply to all industrial and commercial oc
cupations more frequently than do the minimum-age standards.
Hours and night-work regulations apply usually until the child has
reached 16, in some cases 18 years o f age. Some States through
minimum-wage laws regulate the wages o f minors in certain indus
tries, and about half o f the States require some continuation o f edu
cation of the child who goes to work.
These several aspects o f the child-labor laws—relating to stand
ards for going to work in specified occupations, conditions of work,
and dangerous occupations—and the minimum-wage laws, where
these exist, must be studied closely in order to determine just how
effective is the protection extended to children in each State. Even
good laws, of course, are ineffective unless they include adequate
administrative provisions and are thoroughly enforced.
Furthermore, in order to obtain a complete picture o f child-labor
regulations the school-attendance laws must be studied. These laws
36

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

L E G A L R E G U L A T IO N S

provide that children must attend school from a minimum age, 6, 7,
or 8 in different States, up to a maximum age, varying between 14
and 18. Exemptions from compulsory school attendance, applying
to different ages, are permitted for many reasons. They are com
paratively rare, and are more strictly enforced, under age 14; they
become more numerous after age 14, in some States after age 15 or 16.
The principal reasons for which children may be excused from school
attendance are family poverty, completion of a certain grade, attain
ment o f the age for legal employment, or some combination o f these
reasons.
.
The interaction of the school-attendance and child-labor laws m
each State is thus important in determining the numbers of children
who leave school to go to work. On the whole the two types o f law,
where well administered, combine to keep children in school and out
of regular work up to age 14.1 Children under 14 who are employed
(see pp. 4—8) are employed part-time outside school hours or dur
ing vacations ; some of them may have been excused from school on
poverty permits or because they have completed the necessary grade
for exemption from school attendance and are engaged in types of
work not prohibited by the child-labor law of the State; and some
of them may have left school illegally.
After age 14 it is more common for children to withdraw from
school and to enter gainful employment. A number o f States per
mit children to be excused from school attendance to enter the “ reg
ulated ” occupations provided they obtain the requisite work permits;
these permits specify that the child has attained the legal minimum
age for this type of work, that he has completed the educational
requirement, if there is one, and that he has passed a physical exam
ination, if one is required. In some States, after age 14, children
are permitted to withdraw from school to enter occupations for
which no permits are required. The relative ease of withdrawing
from school depends upon local administration and interpretation as
well as upon the actual wording of the school-attendance and childlabor laws. Most States require children, unless specifically excused,
to attend school up to 16,17, or 18 years of age.
To facilitate comparisons among the States, information concern
ing the main legal standards for the employment of minors up to
16 years of age, and certain more limited provisions applying to the
age group between 16 and 18 years, has been compiled in the form
of two charts (pp. 56 to 59) for the 48 States and the District o f
Columbia. There is also a series of maps (pp. 38 to 45) illustrating
some of the more important legal standards. However, the laws are
so complex that it is exceedingly difficult to reduce them to graphic
and easily comparable terms. What is here attempted, in charts,
maps, and text, is a broad panorama. To fill in accurately the detail
for each State, the complete law of that State should be consulted.3
It is easier and more significant to compare the child-labor laws
o f the various States with an accepted standard. Such a measuring
rod is available for most phases of the law in the recommendations
1 In a number o f States the legal age fo r going to work during school hours is 15, and
in a few States it is 16.
.
,,
2 More detailed inform ation as to the law o f any State can be obtained from the
Children’ s Bureau.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOE

o f the subcommittee on child labor of the White House Conference
on Child Health and Protection, composed of educators, health ex
perts, labor-law administrators, and others interested in the study
and care of children.3
J6 MINIMUM AGE FOR EMPLOYMENT AND COMPULSORY SCHOOL
^
ATTENDANCE

The Conference advocated a legal minimum age of 16 years for
employment in any occupation, except that outside school hours and
in vacation minors between 14 and 16 should be permitted to w ork ^ -,
in agriculture 4 and in a restricted list of occupations. Higher age
minima should be fixed for physically or morally dangerous or inju
rious employments.
MINIMUM AG E FOR CHILDREN IN FACTORIES AND STORES, 1933

It further urged that all children, unless physically or mentally
incapacitated, should be required to attend school up to the age of
16 years. No exemption was provided for children completing a
certain grade before this age. School attendance, it was felt, should
also be required between 16 and 18 for all minors not actually and
legally employed unless they had completed a 4-year high-school
course.
Broadly speaking, the State laws now set up a 14-year minimum
standard for employment during school hours, in factories, most of
them also in stores, and usually in other employments as well. Ip
9 States this minimum is 15 or 16 years.5 More than half of the
8 See Child L a b o r ; report o f the subcommittee on child labor o f the W hite H ouse Con
ference on Child Health and Protection (Century Co., New York, 1932).
4As to agriculture, the Committee recommended also that outside school hours childrep
between 12 and 14 might be employed in light agricultural tasks fo r a few hours during a
short season.
6
C alifornia, Maine, Michigan, M ontana (fa ctories), Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas (fac-,
tories), Utah, Wisconsin.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

LEGAL REGULATIONS

States prohibit any gainful employment during school hours, but few
apply the minimum-age provision to all employments at all times.
Agriculture and domestic service are generally exempted or omitted
from the laws; most street trading is not covered by the laws directed
at employers of children, because the child who engages in newspaper
selling or bootblacking is “ self-employed.” 6 Much depends in any
State upon the exact wording of the child-labor and school-attendance
laws, for where exemptions from school attendance are permitted
or where the attendance law is laxly enforced only a specific pro
vision fixing a minimum age for employment will protect young chil
dren from undesirable employment. On the other hand, unless such
a provision is supplemented by a requirement o f school attendance,
children may be found who are neither in school nor gainfully
employed.
COMPULSORY D A Y SCHOOL ATTEN DAN CE LAW S AFFECTING EMPLOYMENT OF
CHILDREN, 1933.1

•^Law applies until child reaches the specified age, but every ó ta te perm its some exem ptions>either
fo r certa in parts o f the State or above certain ages.

Every State now has a school-attendance law that requires school
attendance up to age 14 at least; 29 States and the District of Colum
bia require attendance up to age 16, and 13 up to IT or 18, but with
exemptions for legal employment after 14, 15, or 16. However, even
where the age minimum approaches that set up by the White House
Conference, it must be borne in mind that these laws are weakened
by various exemptions.
"in many States children are required not only to attain a fixed
age but to complete a certain grade or standard of educational pro
ficiency before they are permitted to leave school or go to work.
This standard may be required of a child going to work regardless
o f occupation, but sometimes only o f a child going to work in a regu
lated occupation. In addition to attaining a fixed age, 30 States and
the District of Columbia stipulate completion of a certain grade; in
See p. 49 for regulations applying to the street trader himself.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

C H IL D LA BO R

16 States and the District o f Columbia it is the eighth grade; but in
1 State, Arkansas, only the fourth. In other States only proficiency
in certain subjects is required; in still others the law sets no educa
tional standard. Where an eighth-grade requirement is in force
it operates to keep considerable numbers of children in school who
might otherwise be legally excused to go to work if they had passed
their fourteenth birthday. However, even a high grade requirement
is not as effective a means o f keeping children in school as a 16-year
minimum age for employment coupled with compulsory school
attendance. Some children complete the eighth grade before they are
14, and a great many complete it before they are 16. Three States
have a minimum age o f 16 for work during school hours. (See
chart I.)
EDUCATIONAL STANDARDS FOR CHILDREN UNDER 16 GOING TO W ORK, 1933.

REGULATION OF EMPLOYMENT OUTSIDE SCHOOL HOURS

It has been pointed out that the combined effect of the child-labor
and school-attendance laws is to reduce the number o f children who
would otherwise be gainfully employed on a full-time basis during
school hours. However, school children are permitted to work, and
large numbers o f them do work, in various employments outside school
hours—that is, before or after school, on Saturdays, Sundays, and
holidays, and during vacations. The employments in which they
may engage and the ages at which they may work vary, depending
on the child-labor laws.
The White House Conference recommended as to nonagricultural
w ork 7 that school children under 16 might be employed in carefully
selected occupations but should not be permitted to spend more than
a total of 8 hours at school and at work in any one day; that children
7 See p. 51 for standards recommended for agricultural work.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

LEGAL BEGTJLATIONS

doing light tasks in or about the home might be exempted from the
child-labor laws, but that as respects other types o f work performed
by school children between 14 and 16 years of age, they should be
subject to all the requirements of the child-labor laws, including
the hours and night-work provisions and the employment-certificate
requirements.
A t present only California and Ohio regulate the amount of work
that may be performed by a school child on any one day. School
and work combined may not exceed 8 and 9 hours per day, re
spectively, a limitation applying to children between 14 and 16 years
o f age.
A number o f States lower the minimum age specified in their childlabor laws to permit younger children to work during vacation or
outside school hours, such employment being limited sometimes to
“ nonharmful work ” or to particular occupations, as work in stores,
canneries, business offices. Furthermore, any child may work out
side school hours in whatever occupations are not listed in the laws
as prohibited at all times. Limited coverage o f child-labor laws thus
opens the door to widespread employment when schools are not in
session.
In general, school children who work intermittently and part-time
are insufficiently protected, mainly because the types of work in which
they are apt to engage, such as farming, domestic service, industrial
home work, and street trading, are inadequately regulated. Even
when the regulations nominally apply, often little attention is paid
to certificating school children working outside school hours, or to
enforcing the hours and night-work provisions for them. As a
result such work is often allowed to take precedence over school at
tendance. W ork outside school hours, whether part-time or in vaca
tion, presents special administrative difficulties not inherent in regu
lating the employment of children who drop out o f school perma
nently to go to work. (See pp. 49-53, 55.)
Concerning the actual extent of employment while attending
school little is known. The 1930 census for the first time gives infor
mation on the numbers both working and attending school, but be
cause o f differences in the way o f educational census and the census
o f occupations were taken the two sets of figures are not comparable
and do not give an accurate picture o f school children working parttime. A person was counted as “ attending school ” if he had at
tended at any time during the current school year, that is, between
September 1929 and April 1930; he was counted as gainfully em
ployed if he customarily worked at some regular employment. A
child might have left school permanently prior to April 1 and be
regularly employed, or he might be working full time and merely
attending continuation school a few hours a week or attending night
school. In either case he was enumerated as both working and at
tending school.
COMPULSORY CONTINUATION SCHOOL ATTENDANCE

The continuation school enables the school system to keep in touch
with children who drop out o f regular school to go to w ork; during
the first few difficult years of industrial adjustment it serves as a
center for the various forms o f regulation and supervision o f work
https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOR

ing minors— for instance, the issuance of certificates and vocational
guidance. The courses given in continuation schools are often de
signed to aid the working child in progressing in his occupation.
Nineteen States require the establishment o f continuation schools,
under specified conditions, and require children who leave school for
employment to attend for a stated number o f hours per week. Eight
States leave the establishment o f schools to the option of local author
ities but make attendance compulsory if the schools are set up.8 A ll
these States receive funds under the Federal Smith-Hughes Act for
promoting vocational education; in addition, other States have
schools o f this type at which attendance is voluntary, and which re
ceive aid.
LEGAL REQUIREM ENTS FO R P H Y SIC A L EXA M IN A TIO NS OF CHILDREN GOING
TO W ORK, 1933.

The amount o f attendance required varies usually from 4 to 8
hours a week during employment. Attendance is usually counted as
part o f the child’s working hours. Some States require longer pe
riods o f attendance during unemployment. Attendance is generally
required of children between 14 and 16 years; in some States it is
required up to IT or 18 years o f age.
PHYSICAL EXAMINATION REQUIREMENTS

The White House Conference recommended that all children be
fore entering employment should be found to be physically fit for
work through an examination by a physician appointed for this pur
pose and should be periodically reexamined up to the age o f 18.
The necessity for frequent physical examinations rests upon the
rapid physiological changes that take place during adolescence and
on the peculiar susceptibility to harmful influences during this pe
riod. Children with remedial defects should be given corrective
treatment, should be prevented from going into work that would
8 In 2 o f these States the local authority is empowered to require attendance.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Lé g a l

r e g u l a t io n s

aggravate those defects, and in some cases should be kept out of
work pending correction. It is desirable that the examining phy
sician be acquainted with the nature of specific jobs in order to deter
mine whether they are safe both for the average normal child and for
the particular child whom he is examining.
Twenty-three States now require physical examinations o f children
under 16 years who apply for work certificates; that is, who go to
work in regulated employments. One State, New York, requires
physical examinations up to age IT, and Ohio and the District of
Columbia, up to age 18. Usually reexamination is required upon
change o f job. In some States practically all children going to
work are examined, in others, relatively few— depending on the num
ber o f occupations for which certificates are required.
In practice physical examinations are seldom sufficiently thorough
to prevent children in poor physical condition from going to work.
Moreover, few children obtain the benefit of the medical vocational
advice that the physician could give if his work were correlated with
the placement o f the child in industry.
MAXIMUM HOURS OF WORK

The White House Conference recommended that no minor under
18 years o f age should be employed more than 8 hours a day in
nonagricultural occupations, or more than 6 days a week, or more
than 44 hours a week.9 Utah alone practically comes up to this
standard. A ll the States, with one -exception—Montana,10 regulate
hours to some extent for minors under 16, but only about a third of
the States have any regulation o f hours for minors of both sexes
between 16 and 18, and these often extend to fewer occupations and
permit longer hours than in the case of minors under 16.
Chart I presents the situation with regard to regulation of hours
for children under 16 years of age. Seventeen States and the Dis
trict o f Columbia have fixed a daily maximum of 8 hours for children
under 16 in all occupations except agriculture and domestic service;
8, with the same regulation, apply it nominally to farm or domestic
w ork; 12 States have set this limit for factories or for factories and
stores and in some cases for other occupations. The remaining
States permit longer daily hours. Only 5 States (Mississippi, New
Mexico, New York, Utah, and Virginia) fix the weekly limit as
low as 44 hours; New Mexico, Utah, and Virginia do so for all
commercial and industrial occupations, the others for work in fac
tories, stores, and certain other enumerated establishments. A 48hour weekly maximum is quite common, a standard which was con
sidered advanced some years ago, but which seems out of date to
day when the 44-hour week has been established for adults in a
number o f industries, and when there is agitation for still further
reduction in normal hours. One State, Georgia, still has a 60-hour
week for children under 16, and even this applies only to cotton and
woolen m ills; several permit weekly hours of 54.
9 In agriculture at work away from the home farm the Conference recommended the
same daily maximum for children under 16 when school is not in session, and a maximum
o f 8 hours fo r work and school combined on school days. See p. 51.
10 In Montana a minimum age o f 16 fo r specified employment, including factories,
workshops, and mines, makes unnecessary an hour regulation for children under 16 in
such employments.
182342 8— 33------ 4

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOR

Besides the Utah act, passed in 1933, which practically embodies
the standards of the Conference as to hours in non-agricultural
occupations, only three laws, those of California, Washington, and
the District o f Columbia, approach this standard for minors be
tween 16 and 18; these three specify a maximum 8-hour day and
48-hour week for both boys and girls in all occupations except -agri
culture and domestic service. (See chart II.) A ll the States ex
cept four (Alabama, Florida, Iowa, West Virginia) fix daily or
weekly hours for some occupations, but most of these laws apply to
girls only; in some cases shorter hours are required for girls than
D A IL Y HOURS FOR CHILDREN UNDER 16 IN FACTORIES AND STORES, 1933.

for boys, or apply to a greater number of employments. The hours
range from 8 per day and 44 per week (Utah) to 11 per day and 60
per week. Some States fix hours in only one or two kinds o f em
ployment—work in factories or stores, or both. For this age group,
9 or 10 hours is more common as a daily maximum than 8 hours,
and 54 or even 60 hours more common as a weekly maximum than
48. Many of the provisions have numerous exceptions, such as the
permission o f overtime under certain conditions, that do much to
weaken the effectiveness even of the standards they attempt to set up.
PROHIBITION OF NIGHT WORK

The White House Conference recommended the prohibition of
night work for minors up to age 18 in nonagricultural occupations,
except that boys between 16 and 18 years of age might be permitted
to work up to 10 p.m.
Twenty-seven States and the District of Columbia now prohibit
night work for children under 16 in commercial and industrial em
ployment. A few o f the laws nominally cover all employment, but
generally agriculture and housework are omitted in practice if not

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

LEGAL REGULATIONS

by the language of the law itself. Eighteen additional States have
such a prohibition for factories and 10 of these also for stores.
Some o f these include certain other kinds o f establishments. This
leaves 3 States (Nevada, South Dakota, and Texas) that regulate
night work only up to age 14 or 15, or not at all. The prohibited
period generally varies from 11 to 13 hours, usually starting at
6 or 7 p.m. (See chart I.)
Only 9 States and the District o f Columbia regulate night work
for minors of either sex between 16 and 18 in all commercial and
industrial occupations; 21 States and the District o f Columbia have
such regulations for factories, and not quite so many for stores;
more than half of all these regulations are applicable only to girls.
(See chart II.)
LEGAL PR OH IB ITIO N OF NIGHT W ORK FOR CHILDREN UNDER 16 IN FACTORIES
A N D STORES, 1933.

Prohibition does not begin until 8,9, or even 10 p.m.

MINIMUM-WAGE LAWS

Minimum-wage laws are recognized as a method o f preventing
wages from falling indefinitely in a period of falling prices; such
laws may be used to raise the wages o f extremely low-paid groups
at any time. Minors’ wages, never high, are easily depressed; thus
there is a constant need for setting minimum-wage rates for minors.
Prior to 1933, 15 States and the District o f Columbia at one time
or another had on their statute books laws regulating minimum
wages for women and minors or for women alone in occupations in
which wages were deemed unreasonably low. These laws were up
held by the State supreme courts of Arkansas, Massachusetts, Minne
sota, Oregon,11 Texas, and Washington. But after the United States
Supreme Court in 1923 declared the District o f Columbia law
11
The question o f the constitutionality o f the Oregon act reached the Supreme Court o f
the United States where, by an evenly divided court, the decisions o f the Oregon Supreme
Court were affirmed. B tettler v. O’H ara, Simpson v. O’ H ara, 243 U.S. 629 (1 917).

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOR

unconstitutional12 insofar as it attempted to fix wages for adult
women, the laws of Arkansas and Minnesota, together with the A ri
zona, Kansas, and Wisconsin laws, were declared invalid as regards
the provisions affecting adult women.13 In only one o f these States
was the constitutionality o f the act as regards minors challenged.
In Minnesota, the State supreme court held that the act, insofar
as it related to minors, was constitutional. Wisconsin later substi
tuted a somewhat different type o f law for women, prohibiting the
payment of “ oppressive ” wages (that is, wages lower than a rea
sonable and adequate compensation for the services rendered) but
left the old provisions in effect for minors. Three States have re
pealed their laws.14 One law, that of Colorado, has never been in
operation, for lack of an appropriation. The net result o f these
developments was that prior to 1933 minimum-wage laws were nomi
nally in operation for women and minors in 6 States, for women and
minor girls in 1 State, and for minors only in 1 State.15
Early in 1933 minimum-wage bills applying to women and minors
were again introduced into a number o f State legislatures in an effort
to stem wage deflation. Seven became law (Connecticut, Illinois,
New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Utah). Most
of these bills contained several new features designed to overcome
constitutional obstacles to the regulation o f women’s wages.
Whereas in the type o f law which had been declared unconstitutional
the minimum wage was to be determined solely with reference to the
cost of living, the new type o f law declares that the wage must be
“ fairly and reasonably commensurate with the value of the service
rendered ” , and must also be sufficient to meet the minimum cost
o f living necessary for health.
The laws generally permit a lower minimum wage for minors than
for women, because the minor is not self-supporting in the same sense
as the adult woman and because he is relatively inexperienced. The
laws permit classification o f workers as experienced, inexperienced,
or learners, and different minimum rates may be ordered for these
groups. However, a recent conference o f State officials charged with
the enforcement o f minimum-wage laws recommended the establish
ment of a single minimum for an industry, this minimum to be paid
for unskilled work, and no differentials to be permitted for learners
or for minors.
Some o f the early minimum-wage laws provided for a single flat
minimum rate, fixed in the law itself. South Dakota is the only State
in which this type of law is operative at present. In the 14 other
States the law creates machinery for setting rates for different em
ployments. Employers, employees, and the general public are usually
represented on the wage-fixing body whether that be a commission
or a wage board for each industry. The rates are fixed after public
hearings have been held and may be altered from time to time by
12 Adkins v. Children’ s H ospital, 261 U.S. 525.
18
Arizona: Murphy v. Sardell, 269 U.S. 530 (1925) ; Arkansas: Donhaam v. W est-Nelson
M anufacturing Company, 21% U.S. 657 (1927) ; Kansas: Topeka Laundry Co. v. Court of
Industrial Relations, 237 Pac. 1041 (1925) ; Minnesota: Stevenson v. St. Clair, 201 N.W,
629 (1925) ; W isconsin: Folding F urniture W orks v. Industrial Commission, 300 Fed,
991 (1924).
14 Nebraska, 1919 ; Texas, 1921; Utah, 1929.
M California, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Oregon, W ashington, and W isconsin— for
women and minors o f both se x es; South Dakota— {o r all {emales over 14 ; Minnesota— fop
minors o f both sexes.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

LEGAL REGULATIONS

the same procedure. In 13 States minimum-wage orders are man
datory or may be made mandatory after a certain period,16 and em
ployers may be prosecuted for violations. In one State, Massa
chusetts, the orders are merely directory; that is, employers are not
liable to prosecution, but the commission may publish the names
o f those who fail to pay the minimum wage prescribed. The effec
tiveness o f publicity as an enforcement device varies, however, ac
cording to the nature of the business. Employers whose products are
marketed mainly within the State are the most susceptible to pressure
o f this sort.
Employments which have been repeatedly the subject o f minimumwage regulation are, in general, those employing a large proportion
o f women and girls, including canneries, laundries, stores, and man
ufacturing industries; particular branches of the last that have
been separately regulated include clothing, millinery, paper-box,
confectionery. In some States minimum-wage commissions are given
power to regulate hours and working conditions as well as wages.
REGULATION OF EMPLOYMENT IN HAZARDOUS OCCUPATIONS
PROHIBITION OF EMPLOYMENT IN HAZARDOUS OCCUPATIONS

The principle has long been recognized that a higher age minimum
should be set for employment in specially hazardous occupations.
The White House Conference drew attention to the fact that existing
knowledge concerning industrial hazards was too fragmentary and
incomplete to furnish a scientific basis for adequate protective meas
ures. It strongly urged revision of legislation on the basis of care
ful, comprehensive, and continuing study both of occupations in
which minors are engaged and of those in which industrial accidents
occur, as well as o f possible safeguards in such occupations. Acting
on its suggestion the Children’s Bureau invited a technical committee
to cooperate with it in determining what are hazardous occupations
and in formulating standards for the protection o f minors against
such hazards. In December 1932 this committee issued its first report
containing detailed recommendations. It is planned to revise these
recommendations from time to time in order to „keep abreast of
changes in both industrial hazards and safeguards. The committee
also approved the White House Conference recommendation that
State labor boards, or boards connected with the department en
forcing the child-labor law o f the State, be empowered to issue and
revise rulings prohibiting the employment of minors in occupations in
which the hazards are subject to frequent changes.
The committee’s report dealt with four types of hazards: W ork
in dangerous places, where the hazards may come from the surround
ings ; work on dangerous machinery; work involving exposure to in
jurious substances, such as poisons, gases, dusts, and explosives; and
work involving physical strain or exposure. It recommended that
children under 16 should not be permitted to work on, or in close
proximity to, power-driven machinery o f any kind and that minors
under 18 be barred from a comprehensive list o f occupations involv
ing either general hazards or hazards connected with specified ma
chines or with poisonous substances.
18 Five o f the laws passed in 1933 provide that minimum-wage orders shall be directory
during a certain period, but that i f repeated violations occur any rate may, after a public
hearing, be made mandatory, .

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOR

The employments involving general hazards from which it was
recommended that minors under 18 be entirely barred include: Con
struction and excavation, shipbuilding, mining, generation o f elec
tricity, oil drilling and refining, smelting, and rolling mills. The
specified machines which it was urged minors should be prohibited
from operating are chiefly those o f the stamping or punch-press type,
grinding or polishing machines, saws, and other machines having a
cutting, crushing, or shearing action. Machines are listed by indus
try groups, and the industries include paper and paper products,
wood and metal working, laundries, and bakeries. Occupations pro
hibited on the ground of health hazards are those involving exposure
to such substances as lead, radium, phosphorus, mercury. A num
ber o f other substances are listed which are considered dangerous only
if excessive exposure is involved, for instance, carbon dioxide, carbon
monoxide, corrosives, tar, turpentine.17
These recommendations are far in advance o f State regulations.
The group o f 16- and 17-year-old minors is particularly in need of
further protection. Moreover there is little uniformity in the State
prohibitions. “ Occupations prohibited in one State are entirely
unregulated in another,” says the report o f the advisory committee,
“ and many States have failed to prohibit occupations that are
acknowledged to be extremely hazardous.”
In five States (Idaho, Mississippi, New Hampshire, South Caro
lina, South Dakota) there are no prohibitions o f the employment of
minors in hazardous occupations. Some State laws give compre
hensive lists o f prohibited employments; others have only a general
provision prohibiting employment in any occupation dangerous to
life or limb, or injurious to health or morals. Often such a clause
follows an enumeration o f prohibited employments. A general pro
hibition presents difficulties o f enforcement because it is vague and
subject to the uncertainties of judicial interpretation; on the other
hand, it is useful in covering unforeseen hazards.
The listing o f prohibited occupations in the laws themselves is
satisfactory for employments in which the element of danger is
general and constant, but it does not permit quick or flexible amend
ment to deal ’with rapidly changing techniques and processes.
Twenty-seven States and the District of Columbia have made provi
sion for flexibility by authorizing some central agency, such as a
State labor or health department or an industrial board, to make
rulings in regard to employment of minors in hazardous occupa
tions.18 The power has not been extensively used in the past,
although in certain States, notably New York, Wisconsin, and Penn
sylvania, there has been a growing tendency to exercise it and to
utilize actual accident experience in making rulings.
Minors under 16, although inadequately protected, are afforded a
great deal more protection than those between 16 and 18 years o f age.
Only in 12 States and the District of Columbia is authority granted
to make rulings for persons up to the age o f 18. Comparatively
17 F or com plete lists o f occupations prohibited see Report o f A dvisory Committee on
Employment o f Minors in Hazardous Occupations, in M onthly Labor Review (U.S. Bureau
o f Labor S ta tistics), vol. 35, no. 6 (December 1932), pp. 1315—1321.
“ In a few o f these States the power given does not apply specifically to hazardous
occupations but is an authorization to fix conditions o f labor, under which certain
hazardous occupations have been prohibited.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

LEGAL REGULATIONS

few prohibitions have as yet been extended np to this age, either by
law or by ruling.
MINORS UNDER THE WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION ACTS

Closely related to the question o f prohibiting the employment of
children in dangerous work is the question of the status under work
men’s compensation laws o f minors who are injured while illegally
employed. State laws vary on this point. In some States, compen
sation is awarded whether employment has been legal or illegal.
Eleven exclude the illegally employed minor from this compensa
tion law, on the theory that the employer’s liability for an injury
to such a minor should be unlimited.19 In such cases the courts have
usually held that the employer’s common-law defenses are abro
gated,20 thus increasing the probability that the minor will recover
damages. Twelve States include illegally employed minors under
the compensation laws and provide additional compensation, vary
ing from 50 percent to 200 percent of the usual amount, on the theory
that the minor is entitled to a sum somewhat comparable to the
amount he would be entitled to recover in a suit for damages, and
that a heavy penalty in the form of increased compensation will act
as a deterrent to violations o f the child-labor law.21 The latter is
the method recommended by both the White House Conference and
the Advisory Committee on the Employment o f Minors in Haz
ardous Occupations. Actually few minors excluded from the com
pensation acts have been known to sue their employers for damages
incurred in the course of illegal employment; and although many
cases are settled out of court, some employers escape all liability
and make no payments to minors injured while at work in violation
o f the child-labor law.22 Illegal employment is variously defined
by the laws for the purpose o f awarding extra compensation; in
some States only employment below the minimum age or without
an employment certificate is meant, in other States employment in
violation o f any provision o f the child-labor act.
EMPLOYMENTS IN NEED OF SPECIAL TYPES OF REGULATION
STREET TRADES

Street work, which gives employment to many young children of
school age, as well as to older ones, presents peculiar difficulties;
the fact that these children do not work regular hours in particular
establishments and the fact that many of them are self-employed
complicate the inspection and enforcement problem.
For certain forms o f street trading considered especially unde
sirable for young children, such as newspaper selling, peddling,
boot-blacking, and junk collecting, the White House Conference
recommended a minimum age of 16 and special legislation to facili
tate inspection and enforcement. Other kinds of street work, such
19 Delaware, Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South
Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, W est Virginia.
20 That is, the em ployer is not permitted to avoid liability, as he might at common law,
on the ground that the injury was due to the contributory negligence o f the employee
himself, or to the fault o f a fellow worker, o r that the employee had assumed the risks
o f the employment in which he was engaged.
(See The Illegally Employed Minor and the
W orkm en’ s Compensation Law, p. 6. U.S. Children’s Bureau Publication No. 214.
W ashington, 1932.)
21 Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, M aryland, Michigan, M issouri, New Hampshire, New
Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Utah, W isconsin.
22 The Illegally Employed M inor and the W orkmen’s Compensation Law, pp. 24—29.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABÔft

as newspaper delivering, huckstering, and hand-bill distributing,
it recommended should be specifically included under the provisions
of the general child-labor laws.
Administrative provisicms usually found in good street-trades
laws require that a child before receiving a badge should present
reliable evidence that he is o f legal age, is in good physical condi
tion, and is undertaking the work with the knowledge and approval
o f his parent and school principal. The street worker should be
required to attend school regularly ; the badge should be revoked for
violation o f the law, and in addition penalties should be imposed
on the parent and on the employer or person who furnishes papers
or other merchandise to be sold.
At present 16 States and the District of Columbia have laws requir-.
ing children selling papers or doing other work on the streets to
obtain permits or badges. But only 10 o f these laws apply to the
entire State. Many towns and cities in the United States have
local ordinances or police regulations governing street trades, but
these vary widely in their terms, and most of them are inadequate.
A State law State-wide in application is necessary for effective
protection of street traders.
INDUSTRIAL HOME WORK

It has been repeatedly suggested that the only way of dealing
effectively with industrial home work is to abolish it. Pending its
elimination, the White House Conference recommended strict regu
lation. A ll State labor laws, including those regulating the employ
ment of women and children, safety and sanitation, workmen’s com
pensation, and minimum wage, should be made applicable to indus
trial home work, and penalties for violations should be applicable
to the manufacturer for whom the work is done. A system of
licensing home workers through the State labor departments was
recommended.
Although this type o f work: is found chiefly in the eastern
industrial centers, the results of a survey made for the Association
o f Governmental Officials in Industry showed that it was carried
on to some extent in nearly half the States. Only 8 States, however,
regulate the giving out o f home work by requiring licenses for home
workers 23 and in only 3 24 is the issuance of the license conditioned
upon observance o f the State child-labor law. Such regulation and
inspection, particularly in States where especial attention has been
paid to the problem, have made some progress in checking the worst
abuses. But even in the States with the highest standards, the en
forcement difficulties loom large. From the very nature o f the em
ployment no staff of inspectors, however numerous, could adequately
cope with the problem. The Pennsylvania bureau charged with
administering the home-work regulations reported in 1931 that it had
found great difficulty in enforcing the standards set up by law,
particularly during the business depression when both employers and
workers are hard pressed. Violations o f the child-labor law were
seen in 19 percent of the homes inspected, and violations of the
23
Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, M ichigan, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania,
W isconsin.
2i New York, Pennsylvania, and W isconsin.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

LEGAL) REGULATIONS

women’s labor law in 18 percent, representing an increase over the
preceding year. The report concludes:
The growing prevalence of violation of the labor laws in industrial home work
in the face of persistent study and effort to enforce legal standards of employ
ment for industrial home workers is testimony to the inherent difficulties or
enforcing such standards where continuous supervision oyer workers is lack
ing. * * * It is seriously questioned whether it is possible for employers to
have home work done under really controlled conditions.
DOMESTIC SERVICE

Domestic service in private homes, an important occupation for
children both outside school hours and on a full-time basis, is at
present one of the least regulated o f child employments. Housework
is affording children an increasing amount o f employment, under
more and more undesirable conditions. The child-labor laws of
many States specifically exempt domestic service, together with
agriculture, from one or more o f their provisions. ^A few States25
require a permit to leave school for work in domestic service, and to
obtain such a permit the same standards as to age and education must
be complied with as for other types o f employment.
AGRICULTURE

Regulation o f child labor in agriculture is a comparatively recent
development. Even now such regulation as exists is chiefly an in
direct result of compulsory school-attendance laws, and its effective
ness varies with the effectiveness o f these laws. Direct regulation
is obstructed in part by public sentiment, in part by administrative
difficulties. The administrative system planned to control child labor
in cities, and in industrial and commercial pursuits, is poorly adapted
to cope with the problems found when work units are scattered over
wide rural areas. The difficulty of inspection is greatest where farms
are small and a few workers are employed on each; it is lessened when
large gangs o f laborers are working intensively on great centrallyowned tracts of land, at certain seasons of the year.
The White House Conference proposed the following standards
for children working out for hire, either independently or as members
of a family group: Children under 16 should not be permitted to
work during school hours 5 children under 14 should not be hired
out for agricultural work at any time, except that those between 12
and 14 might be employed outside school hours at light agricultural
tasks a few hours a day during a short season. For children under
16, hours o f work should be legally limited to 8 per day when school
is not in session, and when school is in session the time in school and
in work should not exceed 8 hours per day. It recommended en
forcement through a system o f work permits, valid for an entire sea
son, to be required of children under 16 years of age, engaging in
work away from the home farm. It emphasized the need for increas
ing school facilities for rural children, lengthening school terms, and
requiring more regular attendance.
_
In practice the length o f the school terms, and the strictness with
which compulsory school attendance is enforced, vary not only from
State to State, but from county to county. In many rural communi
ties enforcement is lax and especially adapted to crop requirements $
¡»Among them Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania,

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOR

sometimes indeed the law itself countenances absence o f children for
farm work. Children may often be excused from school attendance
if their labor is required on the farm ; sometimes terms are shortened,
or the schools are closed for “ crop vacations.”
Inadequacy of funds also operates to reduce the amount of school
ing afforded rural children. The rural school term in the school
year 1925-26 averaged 156 days, being 1Yg school months shorter
than the term in urban schools, which averaged 183 days. In oneteacher schools the term in 1924 averaged below 140 days in 11 States;
in Arkansas only 100 days.
School-attendance laws cannot be well enforced in any rural area
until local public opinion has been educated up to the point of plac
ing school attendance ahead of agricultural work, until school funds
are adequate for the needs of the district, and until a staff of attend
ance officers able to cover the territory and to carry out the intent
o f the law has been provided. In cases of special hardship which
develop in connection with the law, satisfactory adjustments may
be worked out through scholarships and mothers’ aid. The State
can render valuable assistance in enforcement through stimulating
and coordinating the work of local officers. It is easily seen that
basic to progress in this field is improvement in the economic status
o f the farming communities. For while the rural population is
eking out the meagerest of livings it is unable to finance its schools,
even with State aid, or to forego using the cheap labor of its children.
Although a number o f States appear to regulate agriculture along
with other types o f work under blanket clauses in their child-labor
laws covering “ all gainful employments ” , only a few provide any
thing approaching effective regulation. The mere absence from the
law of a specific exemption for agricultural work means little, for
such work may be tacitly ignored in applying the law, or it may be
exempted by judicial or administrative decision. Special adminis
trative machinery and special efforts are required to enforce a childlabor law for rural children in agricultural pursuits.
Thirty States and the District of Columbia which prohibit em
ployment below a minimum age at any gainful occupation during
school hours, and a few which prohibit such employment at any
time, nominally include agriculture. So far as the prohibition af
fects employment during school hours it reinforces the schoolattendance laws; and where both laws are strictly enforced certifi
cates are required for children leaving school for employment in
agriculture the same as in other occupations. So far as work out
side school hours is concerned there is a strong presumption that it
is not enforced for agriculture. Hours of labor in farm work are
nominally regulated in some States under a similar blanket clause, in
others by some explicit provision which may or may not be
enforced.26
In some States children leaving school for work on farms during
school hours must obtain employment certificates similar to those
required for work in other regulated occupations.27 In Wisconsin
the industrial commission was given power in 1925 to regulate
through special orders the employment of children in certain types
26 In Nebraska work in beet fields is included along with factories and stores in a list o f
occupations fo r w hich an 8-bour day and a 48-hour week maximum is prescribed.
^Am ong these States are Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

LEGAL REGULATIONS

. f

o f industrialized agriculture, including the culture of sugar beets
and truck farming. Under this power, rulings have been issued,
applying to beet growing, which practically fix a minimum age of
14 for employment during the hours school is in session28; set a
maximum 8-hour day and 48-hour week; prohibit night work; and
require reports to the industrial commission by manufacturing com
panies that arrange contracts between growers and families o f
laborers.
Ohio has fixed a minimum age o f 16 for any employment during
school hours, and 14 outside school hours. Younger children may
be employed outside school hours in “ irregular service ” , including
farm work, for not more than 4 hours a day and 24 hours a week,
provided that rest and recreation periods are allowed, and provided
the work does not involve physical strain.
MIGRATORY CHILD LABOR

Migratory family workers, o f whom many are children, consti
tute an important part of the labor supply in agriculture and in
canning operations. Their employment raises problems not only
as to minimum age and hours, but as to school attendance, housing,
and recreational facilities. The administration o f labor laws for
migratory workers is complicated by the mobility o f the labor force
and the remoteness of the work places.
In order to meet the seasonal demands for labor on fruit and
vegetable crops and in canneries, migratory families frequently
withdraw their children from school before the close of the term,
often returning late in the fall after the schools have opened. For
example, in southern New Jersey, the Children’s Bureau found that
three fourths of the migratory children employed on truck farms
had missed more than a fifth of the school year; one fourth o f the
children had missed more than two fifths.29 Even in States with
good school laws it is difficult to insure attendance o f migratory
children. Often the community into which they migrate feels no
responsibility for such children, and they are temporarily beyond
the reach of their home communities. A few States are making
efforts to solve this problem. Some States have made attempts to
enroll migratory children in the regular schools, but it is difficult to
fit these groups, who may be in the community only a short time,
into courses already in progress. California has set up special
migratory schools, run in close connection with the regular schools.
Pennsylvania in 1931 enacted legislation designed to prevent migra
tory children o f school age from leaving school in their home States
and obtaining employment in Pennsylvania during the period when
the laws of their own State would require their attendance at school,
unless they are qualified for such employment in their own State.
As proof o f eligibility for employment in Pennsylvania a school ana
age certificate, issued by the home State authority, must be presented
by migratory child workers. Children temporarily residing in
Pennsylvania are specifically required to attend school under the
laws o f that State.
28 This is done by prohibiting employment during school hours o f minors under 14 who
have not completed the eighth grade.
39 W ork o f Children on Truck and Small-Fruit Farm s in Southern New Jersey, p. 41.
U.S. Children’s Bureau Publication No. 132. W ashington, 1924.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOR

Labor camps for transient workers engaged either in agriculture
or in canning operations have in many places been found to be
insanitary and overcrowded. The shacks that house the workers >
have often been built without regard to any housing standard whatso
ever. It has been repeatedly urged that State departments of health
or labor should issue regulations governing construction, adequate
water supply, sleeping quarters, toilets, garbage and sewage disposal,
and that the camps should be regularly inspected by the State.
A few States, for instance California and Pennsylvania, have
made progress in improving labor camps, by setting up standards in
part through cooperation with employers, and in part through legis
lation. Most States, however, exercise very little control over these
matters.30
ADMINISTRATION OF CHILD-LABOR LAWS

The effectiveness of a child-labor law depends very largely on the
machinery provided for enforcement and upon the qualifications and
interest o f the enforcement officials. Experience has shown that
provision should be made for the issuance of employment certificates
to all young persons going to work, and for the frequent inspection
of all establishments, both to discover violations and to bring home to
employers their responsibility for observance of the law. Violations
of the law should be punishable not only by fine but by imprisonment;
the law should provide a minimum as well as a maximum penalty,
which should apply to each violation, and each day’s violation should
be regarded as a separate offense.
The child-labor laws of the several States all make some provi
sion for inspection and for penalties, and most of them provide for
employment certificates but, as in the case of the standards set, there
is great variety both in the provisions and in the means for carrying
them out.
The employment certificate is the keystone of child-labor law
enforcement. Certificates should be required for all minors up to 18
years of age, in all occupations. It is necessary that the certificate
be issued for work with a stated employer; that on termination of
employment the certificate be returned to the issuing office; and that
if the child obtains another job a new certificate be issued. The
work of the certificate-issuing office should dovetail with that of the
authorities enforcing the school-attendance law. For instance, i f a
child is missed from school and is found to be employed, the attend
ance officer should notify the certificating office and should also notify
the child’s parents that he must obtain a certificate. The certificate,
once issued, makes it possible to keep in touch with the working child
and helps to enforce the hours and night-work provisions of the
child-labor law. It is evidence of compliance with the legal require
ments for employment, such as age, physical fitness, educational
qualifications, and protects the employer from unintentional violation
o f the law.
The certificating system lends itself particularly to keeping track
o f children employed during school hours, since two agencies, the
certificating office and the school-attendance office, are interested in
accounting for all children of compulsory school-attendance age when
80
Farm and Village H o u sin g ; report o f the committee on farm and village housing o f
the President’s Conference on Hom e Building and Home Ownership, p. 208. National
Capital Press, W ashington, 1932.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

LEGAL REGULATIONS

school is in session. For children attending school and working out
side school hours, on the other hand, there is no violation of the
attendance law to call attention to the fact that the children are
working. I f these children fail to obtain certificates, this is dis
covered only through inspection of work places. Under such circum
stances the certificate cannot be relied upon as a device for keeping
track of working children and their conditions of work, since it is an
object of, rather than an aid to, inspection.
To insure uniform enforcement of high standards the issuance of
certificates should be supervised by State authority. The central
agency should prescribe the forms to be used, issue instructions, re
ceive duplicates o f certificates issued, and check up on the methods of
issuance used by local officers and on their interpretations of the law.
Forty-four States and the District of Columbia require employ
ment certificates for children employed in regulated occupations;
that is, in factories, usually in stores, and sometimes in numerous
other occupations. Generally they are required for children up to
16 years o f age; in a few States, up to 17 or 18 years. Certificates are
usually issued by local school authorities, but in some States they
are issued by representatives of the State education or labor depart
ment. The extent and thoroughness o f supervision exercised by the
States over the local officers vary widely. The United States Chil
dren’s Bureau has cooperated with a large number of State and
local agencies in obtaining comparable reports o f certificates issued
in different localities, and in this connection has assisted in stand
ardizing the procedure of issuing certificates. Reports from the
cooperating offices are compiled and published annually, thus giving
a picture of the trend of child employment in the regulated
occupations.31
CHILD LABOR AND THE NATIONAL RECOVERY ADMINISTRATION

The adoption of codes of fair competition under the National
Industrial Recovery Act has offered a new method of regulating
child labor. These codes, set up by joint agreement o f employers,
are for an emergency period, but their duration may be extended,
and in any case their requirements will no doubt influence both
industrial practice and legislative standards. About 60 codes have
been signed by the President and are now in effect32, including many
important manufacturing and mining industries and most of the
retail dealers. These codes prohibit the employment o f children
under 16, with the exception o f the general retail code, which permits
children between 14 and 16 to work part time outside school hours;
18 has been fixed in a number of dangerous industries or for certain
hazardous processes. Where these codes fix a higher age requirement
than that of a State law they have the effect of raising the standard
for the particular industry; but where the State law has the higher
standard, it is controlling.
The codes still pending for the most part propose to fix a minimum
age o f 16, and in some cases a higher age minimum for dangerous
occupations. The President’s Reemployment Agreement, which is
81Annual Reports o f the Chief, U.S. Children’ s B u reau ; Trend o f Child Labor in the
United States, in M onthly Labor Review (U.S. Bureau o f Labor S ta tistics), vol. 35,
no. 6 (December 1932), pp. 1322—1336.
82 Oct. 25, 1933. Further inform ation as to the regulation o f child -employment under
the N .R .A .-m ay he obtained from the Children’ s Bureau as new codes are adopted or old
ones modified.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

C h art I.— REGULATION OF EMPLOYMENT OF MINORS UNDER 16
[This chart is merely a guide to the most important standards for the employment of children under 16, the many exemptions permitted, such as those fixing lower standards for
work outside school hours and during vacation, not being indicated. The chart does not include agriculture and domestic service, which are usually not covered by child-labor
laws, or street trades and theatrical or other public exhibitions, which are usually covered by special regulations. A regulation specified for ‘ factory or store may app y
also to other places of employment such as laundries, restaurants, etc.]

Stores

Factories

All occupations

Stores

Factories

All occupations

Stores
:___________
!

Factories

All occupations

Stores

All occupations
during school
hours only

Factories

Grade requirement for obtaining an
employment certificate during
school hours

14
14
14
14
14
14
14
14
12

14
8
14
8
14
8
15
8
14
8
14
14 • 8
14
8

14
14
14
14
14
14
14

14
14
14
14
14
14
14
14

14
14

14
14 1

Alabama—. _______ _

Arkansas_____________

Delaware ------- ------ District of Columbia...

14
14

Indiana______________

_
Louisiana____________

Massachusetts------------

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

14
14
14
14
14
14
14
14

9
8
8

14
14
14

15
14
14

8
8
8
8
8
8
• 8
8
9

8
8
8
8
8
9
8
8

9
8
8
8
8
8
8

48
48
48
48
48
48
9 48
48
54
160
54
48
48
48
48
48
48

48
48
48
48
48
52
48
48

@ (G) 54
& 48
48
48

54
48
48

48
48
48
48
48
• 48
48

54
48
48

54
48
48
48
48
48
48

p.m. a.m.
7 to 6
7 to 7
7 to 6
10 to 5
After 8.
• 7 to 6
7 to 7

9 to 6
7 to 7
7 to 6

7 to 6

6 to 6:30

p.m. a.m.
7 to 6
7 to 7
7 to 6
10 to 6
After 8.
6 to 6
9 7 to 6
7 to 7
8 to 5
7 to 6
9 to 6
7 to 7
7 to 6
6 to 7
6 to 7
6 to 7
7 to 6
9 6 to 6:30
© 7 to 7
6 to 6:30

p.m. a.m.
7 to 6
7 to 7
7 to 6
10 to 5
After 8.
6 to 6
7 to 6
7 to 7

9 to
7 to
7 to
6 to
6 to
6 to
7 to

6
7
6
7
7
7
6

7 to 7
6 to 6:30

7th.
5th.
4th.
8th at 14; 7th at 15.
None.
6th (with exemptions).
8th (with exemptions).
8th.
None.
None.
None.
8th.
8th.
6th.
8th.
5th.
In New Orleans, 6th or 8 years’
attendance.
8th.
6th in Baltimore; 7th outside.
6th.

CHILD LABOR

All occupations

State

Night work prohibited

Weekly hours

Daily hours

Minimum age

Michigan____ ________
Minnesota___________
Mississippi....................
Missouri. ___________
Montana_______ _____

14
14
• 14
14
14
16

Nebraska____________
Nevada______________
New Hampshire______
New Jersey______ ____
New M exico._________
New York___________
North Carolina...........
North Dakota.
Ohio__________ ______
Oklahoma______ _____
Oregon____________ .
Pennsylvania................
Hhode Island_________
South Carolina____
South Dakota________

14
14
14

15
14

10
8

age.

14
14

14
14
14
14
14
14
14
14
14
14
14
14

14
14
14

14
14

io «
14
14
14

8
8

14
14
14

14
14
15

9
9

48
48
48 (under 15),

8
8

TJtah........................
Vermont________
Virginia____________
W ashington.. . . ____
West Virginia
Wisconsin... ________
Wyoming....................

16
14
14
14
14
14

•
7 to 7
7 to 7

to 6
7 to 7
® 7 to 6
7 to 7

7 to 6:30
7 to 7
7 to 7

7 to 7

to 7
to 6
7 to 6

6
8

6 th.

7 to 6:30
7 to 7
7 to 7
5 to 8
7 to 6
7 to 7
6 to 7
6 to 7
6 to 7
8 to 6
7 to 6

7 to 7
7 to 6
7 to 7

to 6

7 to
7 to
7 to
6 to
7 to
7 to
6 to

6:30
7
7
8
6

7
7

to 7
to 6
7 to 6

8 th.

None.
6 th.
8 th.
8 th

(with exemptions).

None.
at 14; 6 th at 15.
None.
8 th at 14; 6 th at 15.
None.
8 th, or 9 years’ attendance.
16 minimum age.
8 th

8 th.

6 th.

8
8

14
16

8
8

(G) applies to girls only.

48
48
54
48
44
44
48
48
48
48
48
51
48

14
14
14
14

54
48
44
48

8 th,

or 8 years’ attendance.

1 55

1 10

14
15

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

8
8

14
16

1014

14
14
14
14

Tennessee____________
Texas________________

1034

® 54
48
• 44
48
48
. 16 min.
age.
48
48
48
54
64
48
48
44
44
44
48
48
48
48
48
48
48
48
51
61
48
48

44
48
44
48
48
48
48

44
48
48
48
48

None.
7 to 6
10 to 5
(under 15)
6 to 7
to 7
7 to 6
7 to 6
6 to 7
7 to 7

Cotton and woolen factories only.

7 to 6
10 to 5
(under 15)
6 to 7
7 to 6
6 to 7
7 to 6
7 to 6
6 to 7
7 to 7

der 14).
7 to 6
10 to 5
(under 15)
6 to 7
to 7
7 to 6
7 to 6
6 to 7
7 to 7

None.
None.
16 minimum age.
None.
at 14; none at 15.
6 th.
16 minimum age.
None.
8 th

• Canneries are exempted.

C h a r t II.— HOURS OF LABOR REGULATIONS AFFECTING MINORS BETWEEN 16 AND 18

(Applicable either: (1) To all occupations except work in agriculture and domestic service; or (2) to work in factories or stores (regulation here listed may apply also to other occu
pations) . Exemptions not noted except in case of canneries]

Weekly hours

Daily hours

State

All occupa
tions ex
cept agri
Factories
culture and
domestic
service

8
10

(G) 8
(G) 9

(G) 48
54
48

(G) 8
(G) 10
• (G) 10

(G) 8
(G) 9

• (G) 9
(G) 10
(G) 8

(G) 9
(G) 10
(G) 8

(G) 48

9
(G) 10
(G) 9
• (G) 9
• (G) 10
9
• 10

9
(G) 10
(G) 9

(G) 60
(G) 54

•

(G) 10

Stores

(G) 48
(G) 54
48

(G) 55
• (G) 55

(G) 52

All occupa
tions except
agriculture
and domestic
service

Factories

p.m. a.m.

p.m..

(G) 7 to 7
10 to 6
10 to 5

(G) 7 to 7
(G) 9 to 7
10 to 6

|(G) 7 to 7
1(B) 10 to 6

Stores

a.m.

p.m. ajn.

CHILD LABOR

(Q)

Stores

All occupa
tions ex
cept agri
culture and Factories
domestic
service

Night work prohibited

(G) 7 to 7
(G) 9 to 7
10 to 5

(G) 10 to 6
• (G) 10 to 6
( (G) 7 to 7
[(B) 10 to 6

(G) 10 to

f(G) 7 to 7
1(B) 10 to 6

160

(G)

(G) 10
(G) 9

Mississitroi____________ _______ ___________________

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

(G) 10

9
10

• (G) 54
(G) 60

(G) 48

49^
60
54
54
60
48
• 54
• (G) 54
(G) 60

54
(G) 60
(G) 54
(G) 54

(G)
(G)
O (G)
• (G)

48
54
(G) 54
(G) 60

(G) 7 to

9 to

After 9 p.m.

(G) 7 to

* 10 to 5
• (G) 6 to

10 to 5
6

I
• (G) 9
(G) 8
(G) 9

Missouri________
Montana............
Nebraska_______
182342

Nevada________
New Hampshire.
New Jersey_____
New Mexico____
New York______
North Carolina..
North Dakota...
Ohio....................

Oregon................
Pennsylvania___
Rhode Island___
South Carolina..
South Dakota__
Tennessee...........
Texas..................
Utah...................
Vermont_______
Virginia________
Washington........
West Virginia__
Wisoonsin______
Wyoming______

10*4

(G)
(G)

(G)

10*4
(G) 10

(G) 48
54

(B) 9
(G) 8
(G) 10
(G) 8*4
(B) 10
(G) 8
(G) 9
(B) 10
I (B) 60
(G) 9
I (G) 48
• (G) 54
(G) 10
(G) 10
(G) 12
(G) 54
(G) 10
(G) 10*4 » (G) 57
(G) 54
(G) 9
• 44
8
(G) 10

(G) 9
(G) 8

• (G) 54

(G) 54

(G) 48
64
• (G) 54
(G) 48
[ 0 ( B ) 54
l (G) 48
• (G) 55
(G) 48
f (B) 54
I (G) 48
(G> 54
f (B) 60
I (G) 48
• (G) 54
(G) 54
i 55
(G) 54
• (G) 57
(G) 54
• 44
56
• (G) 60
48

(G) 48
54
(G) 54
48
(B) 54
(G) 48
(G) 55
(G) 48
(B) 54
(G) 48
(G) 54
(B) 60
(G) 48
(G) 54
(G) 54
(G) 60
(G) 54
(G) 57
(G) 54
44

(G) 50
(G) 48

(B) Applies to boys only; (G) applies to girls only.
applies in Georgia and South Carolina to cotton or woolen factories only.
• Cannery exemption.
* After 6 p.m. in textiles and leather manufacturing. The prohibited period in factories for females is 10 p.m. to

(G) 60
48

(G)

(G) 12:30 to
6 a.m.

• (G) 10 to
) ......................

)
/

............ .

f(G ) After
\ P-m.
(G) 9 to 6

12:30 to
a.m.

f (B) 12 to 6
\ (GO 10 to 7

f (B) 12 to 6
\(G) 9 to 6
(G) 9 to 6
f (B)10 to 6
\(G) 6 to 7
(G) 6 to 7
f(G ) After
1 p.m.
(G) 9 to 6

(G) After 9 p.m
f (B) 10 to 6
\(G) 6 to 7
6

f(G ) After
p.m.
(G) 9 to 6

After 10 p.m.

(G)

to 7

7 to

(G)

to 7

7 to

• (G)

(G)

to 7

7 to

LEGAL REGULATIONS

Oklahoma______

(G) 8
10*4
• (G) 10
(G) 8
/ • (B) 9
l (G) 8
• (G) H
(G) 8*4
f (B) 10
I (G) 8
(G) 9
(B) 10 f (B) 10
(G) 9
(G) 9 l
(G) 10 • (G) 10
(G) 10
» 10
(G) 10
(G) 10
>(G) m i • (G) 10*4
(G) 9
(G) 9
•8
10*4
• (G) 10
(G)

(G) 9
(G) 8
(G) 9

1 Law

a.m.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOR

signed by employers pending the adoption of codes for their indus
tries, permits the employment of children between 14 and 16 in parttime work outside school hours, but not in manufacturing or
mechanical industries.
. . .
Through these codes a real beginning has been made in restricting
child labor. Much, however, remains to be done, particularly in
securing a more complete coverage o f dangerous occupations by the
higher age standards. Furthermore, certain forms o f child employ
ment— e.g., in street trades, domestic service, and commercialized
agriculture—will be difficult to regulate under the National Recovery
Administration because the act places the main emphasis upon trade
and industry groups. Some method of extending the benefits of the
act to these workers, however, may be found.
CONCLUSIONS

Regulation of child labor is most common in manufacturing estab
lishments and in the extraction o f minerals, followed next by stores
and other business places. On the other hand, agriculture, domestic
service, and street trades are subject to little, if any, regulation.
Although the classification o f occupations used by the Census
Bureau and by the child-labor laws do not coincide, it is possible
to make a very rough calculation o f the number and proportion of
gainfully occupied children under 16 years who worked in regulated
and unregulated occupations in 1920 and 1930. Comparatively few
children o f 10 to 13 years of age (only 10 percent in each year)
worked in regulated occupations, because regulations applying to
children under 14 tend to prevent employment, at least during school
hours. The proportion of children 14 and 15 years old working in
regulated occupations was approximately 50 percent in 1920 and 30
percent in 1930. This means that an increasing proportion of the
children who still go to work are employed in occupations that are
mainly outside the protection of the child-labor laws—in 1930, 70
percent o f the 14- and 15-year-old working children. Child labor is
not decreasing as rapidly in the unregulated as in the regulated
occupations.
As pointed out, nearly all the child-labor laws cover only a partial
list o f occupations. I f legislation is to have a further significant
effect, more attention must be paid to those occupations that have
hitherto been mainly exempt from regulation, in which a very high
proportion of the children now at work are engaged.
Present needs in improving child-labor legislation may be summed
up as follow s:
(1) To make the laws more comprehensive as to the employ
ments covered;
(2) to raise the minimum age standard for general employ
ment;
(3) to raise the age to which regulatory provisions apply;
(4) to revise downward the maximum hours permitted by
law ;
(5) to extend to minors increased protection against occupa
tional hazards;
(6) to improve administrative machinery;
(7) to improve the coordination between child-labor and
school-attendance laws.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHAPTER IV.— A BRIEF HISTORY OF CHILD LABOR
From ancient times and in all lands the work o f children has been
an integral part of the work of the world. The kind o f work per
formed by children at different periods has been determined in part
by their strength and ability, and in part by the technical equipment
o f different societies together with the varying need for skilled or
unskilled labor. Some societies, which have set a high value on
good workmanship, have required periods o f prolonged training dur
ing youth; others, with a less exacting standard and different needs,
have permitted employment at a relatively young age on unskilled
work. Only comparatively recently has a new concept begun to in
fluence the upbringing of children—the concept o f childhood as a
period for the development o f personality through education and
play. Along with this has come a new concern for the child’s health.
As these ideas have gained a wide acceptance they have modified
traditional attitudes on child labor. Thus, depending on a combina
tion of social attitudes and the current economic and industrial
organization, the lot o f children has varied considerably through
history.
THE MIDDLE AGES TO THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

To start back no further than medieval Europe: The children of
serfs, who formed the great majority o f the medieval population,
were set to work in the fields at an early age. They received no edu
cation, no training, and had no opportunities for advancement, save
that a few could become artisans attached to the medieval estates,
such as cobblers, armorers, bakers, millers, carpenters, or masons.
Children continued to labor in the fields from sunrise to sunset
right down to our own times, their standard o f living varying with
the prosperity or decline o f the peasant class, and their conditions
of work remaining much the same. Agricultural laborers were
among the last groups to benefit from social reform movements.
With the rise o f towns new opportunities opened up to that por
tion of medieval society so fortunate as to have access to them.
Around the year 1400 about 10 percent o f the population of western
Europe lived in towns, and the number increased in the succeeding
centuries. Medieval artisans were distinctly better off than the peas
ant class; from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries the towns
throughout Europe abounded in small workshops in which master
craftsmen worked side by side with a few apprentices and journey
men, leaving marvelous examples o f their skill in glass, ivory, the
precious metals, steel, bronze, leather, and parchment. Their tex
tiles, particularly woolen cloths, although more perishable, were
also famous. It was the ambition o f the townsmen to have their sons
apprenticed to masters who would teach them a skilled trade. The
apprentice was indentured usually at about the age of 14 years, for
61

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CSILO LABOR

a period o f from 2 to 7 years, depending upon trade and local cus
tom. His parent or guardian paid a small fee in return for which
the master boarded, clothed, and fed him, and personally taught
him the use o f the tools of the trade. Although the apprentices did
not enjoy the freedom of modern youth, worked the same long hours
as the adults (that is, from sunrise to sunset), received neither pay
nor spending money, and were sometimes subjected to harsh disci
pline, they were trained to take their place in the society about them.
I f the master belonged to one of the craft guilds, which existed in the
principal trades in most medieval towns, the number o f his appren
tices, their treatment and training, and sometimes their dress and
conduct, were regulated by the guild. After completing his term o f
service the apprentice submitted to a test o f skill and if passed by a
jury o f guildsmen, was admitted to practice his trade independently
and might become a master and a guildsman in his turn.
A t first the guilds were open and democratic about admitting new
members, and their regulations served mainly to preserve good work
manship. But later they became oligarchic and selfishly restrictive;
entrance was made difficult and expensive; competition of nonguildsmen was suppressed. A t the close of the Middle Ages (fifteenth
century) the apprentice, unless he was the son o f a rich man or a
guild member, could look forward only to becoming a journeyman,
working for wages; he was often compelled to spend many of his
best years roving from place to place in search of work.
In the later Middle Ages and in the beginnings of the modern
period, a town proletariat grew up, having neither property nor
trade training, working for day wages in the least skilled and
meanest occupations, or employed in the great cloth-making estab
lishments which mark the beginnings o f modern large-scale industry.
In England as rich landlords enclosed for their own profit common
land, which had once been for the use o f the whole village, the dis
placed peasant class, the yeomen, who were impoverished by this
process, flocked to the towns.
Increasing numbers of paupers, in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and
eighteenth centuries, led in England to a modification of the appren
ticeship system which, persisting into the modern industrial era,
lent itself to frightful abuses. When the children of poor parents
fell a charge on the parish it was customary to bind them out to
whatever masters would take them. Usually they worked for poor
men, in relatively unskilled and badly paid trades that were not
organized into guilds. These pauper apprentices acquired neither
skill nor standing in the community. A system of trade training had
been debased into a system o f poor relief.
THE COMING OF INDUSTRIALISM

By the end o f the eighteenth century England was in the midst
o f a social and economic upheaval. Old institutions were decaying,
among them the guilds with the apprenticeship system; new theories
were coming into vogue—“ laissez faire ” , “ freedom of contract ” ,
“ freedom o f trade ” , Freed from restraints and regulations, indi
viduals began to pile up fortunes in land and in commerce. With
the aid of capital thus accumulated in mobile form, an intensive

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOR

utilization o f natural resources and o f human labor began, such as
was never dreamed of in the ancient and medieval world. Mechan
ical inventions followed one after another throughout the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, completing the wreck of the older economy.
Machine-tending required no 7-year apprenticeships. Hand-workers
who had to compete with machines could not lavish the care and skill
upon their products that the thirteenth-century craftsmen had done.
The young workers, at the end o f the eighteenth century, were
caught in a whirlpool o f new forces. They were the worst sufferers
from the social dislocations! and the technological changes o f the
period. They suffered from the pauperization of rural laborers, for
particularly in the south o f England, the standard o f living declined
steadily from about 1760 onwards, reaching unprecedented depths
o f misery by the end of the Napoleonic wars; neither agriculture
nor industry offered the security to which the medieval apprentice
or the child o f the seventeenth-century yeoman could look forward.
The quest for profits was playing havoc with earlier traditions o f
social responsibility and training of the young. Neither employers
nor parents, nor any other authority, interfered to prevent the mass
ing o f young children as wage-earners in factories, workshops, or
mines. The new inventions set up processes that were simple
enough for children to learn but at the same time were dangerous.
The development o f competitive industries drove employers to cut
costs to the bone, and consequently stimulated the employment of
cheap child labor in preference to adults. At no other period of
history have children displaced adults to the extent they did during
the heyday of the industrial revolution in England.
The factories in which cotton was spun and woven have long been
looked upon as the symbol o f the new order, and as the seat o f the
worst abuses. This is erroneous. Exploitation o f cheap labor, and
particularly of child labor, went on in other fields, such as agricul
ture, mines, and domestic industries, probably more extensively and
certainly for a longer period o f time than in the textile mills. But
the factories startled people. They were new and conspicuous.
And for a time what went on behind their walls was appalling.
Children, many o,f them less than 10 years o f age, were imported
from the poor-houses o f London in gangs to tend the new machines
in the north o f England mill centers. The parish overseers paid
the mill owners a sum for each pauper child that they took as an
apprentice. Nobody noticed how high the sickness or death rate
might be among such workers, for the supply o f children in the
London slums was apparently inexhaustible. Fourteen hours was
a normal working day, machinery was unguarded, supervision was
brutal. The condition o f these children aroused the first agitation
for modern factory legislation. In 1802 Sir Kobert Peel was instru
mental in having a factory act passed by Parliament, but the act
failed to improve conditions because it lacked the machinery for en
forcement. It took decades o f misery, of parliamentary investiga
tions, o f reform agitation, and of experimentation with a technique
o f regulation, before the English working children were assured a
minimum o f rest, protection, and education.
The story of the awakening o f public opinion to the evils o f child
labor in England in the nineteenth century is dramatic and signifi
https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOR

cant. It cannot be told in detail here. The spotlight o f investiga
tion was turned first on one and then another pocket o f wretchedness
and exploitation. It was soon discovered that pauper apprentices
were not the only sufferers. Resident parents sent their children to
work in the mills, for equally long hours and under the same condi
tions. Often the parents had no choice; the mill-owners demanded
that the whole family work. One result o f the regulation o f pauper
apprentices in 1802 was to stimulate the employment o f children
who were not bound apprentices and, therefore, not subject to the act.
In 1819, partly through the efforts o f Robert Owen, an act regulat
ing all child labor in cotton mills was passed, which, although below
Owen’s proposed standards, prohibited the employment o f children
under 9 years and limited the hours for children under 16 years to
12 a day.
These acts, however, still left untouched the condition o f children
in woolen and worsted, silk, and lace mills, and other establishments
where the same' abuses existed. Beginning in 1883 Lord Ashley,
later the seventh earl o f Shaftesbury, began his long career o f plead
ing the case o f these and other unfortunate child workers before
Parliament. He was instrumental in starting parliamentary in
vestigations o f conditions in factories, workshops, and mines and
obtained the passage o f several legislative landmarks. The first of
these, the Factory Act of 1833, applied to all textile mills. It some
what raised the standards set by the earlier act and instituted the
first rudimentary system of factory inspection. In 1844 hours o f
children were again shortened, a “ half-time ” system of education
for factory children was provided, children were forbidden employ
ment on dangerous machines, and inspection was improved, but, on
the other hand, the minimum age for part-time employment was
reduced to 8 years.
One o f Shaftesbury’s committees in 1842 discovered that condi
tions far worse than those in mills, involving child labor, existed in
the coal mines. These conditions had prevailed for probably a cen
tury, unnoticed because hidden away in the depths o f the earth.
Girls and women, and boys under 10, were accordingly prohibited
from working in mine pits, and inspectors were appointed to enforce
the law.
In 1843 still another report on the employment o f children dis
closed conditions, described as even worse than those in Lancashire
factories, in industries using the hand methods that had been used
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, thus indicating a prob
ability that these conditions were of long standing. The smallmetal trades, which include the manufacture o f nails, needles, and
pins, the manufacture o f hosiery, straw plaiting, fustian cutting, car
pet weaving, ribbon weaving, lace making, and tobacco manufactur
ing were what would now be called “ sweated” industries. They
were carried on for the most part by small-scale employers whose
workshops, tucked away in garrets and alleys, afforded insanitary
and precarious employment. Parish apprentices were used, as were
the children of parents who themselves worked and bound their
children out in order to repay debts. In some o f these trades chil
dren o f 3,4, and 5 years worked for long hours at simple, monotonous,
and cramping operations. Potteries, calico-printing plants, bleach

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

■~>Yi

CHILD LABOR

and dye works, and match and cartridge works were also notorious
for their employment of young children. Yet progress in dealing
with these conditions was slow; reports made in 1863 read much the
same as those made 20 years earlier, for during the intervening period
legislation did not touch employments outside the textile industries.
In 1864 and 1867, however, new industries were brought within the
ambit o f the law, and gradually standards relating to minimum age,
hours, and night work were raised as well as made more inclusive.
The later developments in British child-labor legislation are also
complicated because of the varied and piecemeal methods used to
meet the problem. Separate acts, specifying different minimum ages,
continued to regulate different kinds o f employment. Thus the mini
mum age for all factory and workshop employment became 11 years
in 1893 and 12 years in 1902, while the age for boys working under
ground in mines was fixed somewhat higher by the mines acts. A ll
girls and women had been prohibited in such mine work since 1843.
The factory acts also regulated education by requiring children em
ployed in factories and workshops to attend school half-time up to age
14, or 13 if the child had obtained the required educational certificate.
This “ half-time ” system continued in effect until 1918, although in
the seventies an attack on child labor was begun from a different
direction, namely through the education acts. These dealt both with
compulsory school attendance and with minimum age for employ
ment, thus supplementing the factory and mines acts. The Education.
Act of 1876 prohibited children under 10 from any employment.
Generally, however, the education acts took the form of empowering
local authorities to make regulations requiring school attendance up
to a certain age. In any locality in which the authority did not see
fit to use this power school attendance remained voluntary—except
insofar as half-time attendance was required under the factory acts.
The Elementary Education Acts of 1870 and 1876 permitted local
authorities to make school attendance compulsory for children be
tween the ages o f 5 and 13 years but required such authorities to
exempt children o f 10 and over who could meet a standard o f educa
tion fixed by the local authorities. Children under 10 were prohibited
employment, and the employment of children between 10 and 14
who had not complied with certain educational requirements was
forbidden unless they came under the half-time provisions o f the
factory acts, in which case they divided their time between work
and school. In 1900 the age up to which attendance might be re
quired by the local authorities was raised to 14. An act passed in
1903 prohibited the employment o f children in lifting weights or
in any dangerous or unhealthful occupation; it also permitted local
authorities to prohibit the employment of children under 14 in any
or all gainful employment outside factories, workshops, and mines,
and to regulate their hours o f work. Local authorities were, how
ever, slow to make use o f these powers.
In 1918 the Fisher Education Act, passed under the stimulus
o f the abnormal war situation, inaugurated several new and im
portant policies. It abolished the half-time education system in
factories and workshops and established for the first time a national
standard for compulsory education, requiring attendance to 14 years.
A t the same time, it continued the tradition o f local option by per
https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOR

mitting local authorities to raise the compulsory school attendance
age to 15 if they so desired. The employment o f any child under
12 years o f age was prohibited. Fourteen was made the minimum
age for employment in factories, workshops, mines, and quarries.
In 1920, in order to conform to the International Draft Convention,
adopted in Washington, a 14-year minimum was set for general in
dustrial employment.1 The 1918 act permitted a limited amount
o f employment to school children between the ages o f 12 and 14,
but prohibited their work at night. Another section of the Fisher
A ct provided for continuation schools for employed children be
tween 14 and 16 years o f age and ultimately to 18 years o f age. This
provision, however, was never fully put into operation. A number
o f voluntary continuation schools were set up, many o f them initiated
by employers in cooperation with local education authorities, and
in a few places compulsory continuation schools were operated for
a year or two. The idea of a comprehensive system was scrapped
with the wave o f economy necessitated by the depression beginning
in 1921.
The Education Act o f 1921 consolidated into a single act most of
the existing laws relating to education and certain of those relating
to the employment o f children and young persons. This act has
been further amended in certain respects by an act passed in 1932,2
the main provisions of which deal with delinquency and dependency.
The minimum age for street trading is raised from 14 to 16, and
may be extended by local action to 18. Local authorities ^are em
powered to regulate employment up to 18 in certain occupations now
unregulated, but this section cannot come into operation without the
consent o f Parliament.
This brief review o f English legislation on the subject of child
labor reveals certain interesting lines of development, particularly
since 1876. A great deal o f latitude has been allowed local author
ities in setting standards. Legislation first confined itself to setting
up a very limited number o f minimum national standards and
suggested further fields in which local authorities were empowered
to act within limits defined by law. Gradually the national min
imum standards have been both extended and raised, while local
authorities have continued to exercise the power to set higher
standards within a prescribed range.
Since England was the first country to undergo industrialization,
and was followed after some lapse o f time by the countries of western
Europe, by America, and ultimately by the Far East, it might be
supposed that the lesson o f British experience would have sufficed
to warn these later comers into the industrial field against potential
abuses. Undoubtedly the process o f bringing the new order under
some sort o f social control was shortened, and the British laws served
as models for reformers in other countries, but nevertheless children
in practically all countries had to pass through a period o f exploita1 Employment of Women, Young Persons, and Children Act, 10 and 11, Geo. V, ch. 65.
2 The Children and Young Persons Act of 1932, 20 and 21, Geo. V, ch. 21. Since
tlila report was written, the Children, and Young Persons Act, 1933, 23 Geo. V, ch. 12,
was passed, consolidating the provisions of the Children and Young Persons Act, 1932,
and earlier acts, but making no substantive changes. The effective date of the act,
with the exception of the section authorizing local authorities to make bylaws respect
ing the employment of young persons between 14 and 18 in certain occupations not now
regulated by statute, has been set for Nov. 1, 1933.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOE

tion and exposure to all sorts o f hardships and hazards before the
need for their protection was realized and necessary machinery set up.
This is partly because the wide publicity given to the worst condi
tions in England induced a complacency in other countries over their
less lurid but still wretched conditions. It would be a long story to
recount for the separate countries, but many similarities to British
experience crop up. The rise of modern industry with its simplified
routine processes opened the way for large-scale exploitation o f child
labor. The introduction o f cotton factories, employing large numbers
o f children, stimulated the first reform agitation—in Germany, in
France, in the United States, and in the Orient. People then discov
ered, as they had in England, that the textile mills were not the only
or the worst exploiters o f children; they were only the newest and
most conspicuous. They also proved everywhere the easiest to con
trol, because they could be located readily by inspectors, and usually
the large mills were the most profitable and could best afford to
dispense with cheap and inefficient labor. When improved steamdriven machinery was introduced, after the first slow-moving models,
adult machine tenders necessarily displaced children on many, though
by no means on all, operations. Far more difficult was it to locate
and to check the overworking o f young children by small, povertystricken employers, in home workshops and on farms.
Prussia, and later the German Empire, may be considered the
pioneers o f social legislation on the continent. In some respects their
laws were more comprehensive than British legislation. In 1839, 20
years after the exploitation o f children in Rhenish textile factories
had first begun to attract attention, the first actual regulations were
issued, setting an age limit for employment o f 9 years. However, for
children between 9 and 16 years a 10-hour day was fixed, whereas
England had not advanced beyond the 12-hour day. Also, night
work and Sunday work were prohibited, and a certificate showing 3
years o f school attendance was required as a prerequisite o f employ
ment. The act apparently applied to all employment, not only to
textile mills. In 1845 a 10-year age limit and a 9-hour day for chil
dren under 16 years were enacted. Regulation o f employment in agri
culture and domestic service lagged, as in other countries. Children
working in domestic service and agriculture were exempted from a
new and comprehensive law enacted in 1903. Yet, at this very time,
as a survey o f school children revealed, about 2,000,000 children
worked in agriculture, and nearly half a million were under 10 years
o i age, not including^ a very large group o f children who worked for
their own parents without pay.3 In 1903 a beginning was made in
regulating the hours o f children employed by their own parents in
industrial home work, and in 1911 and 1919 the home-work law was
strengthened.
EARLY CHILD LABOR IN THE UNITED STATES

In the United States the founder o f the cotton industry, Samuel
Slater, employed nine children between 7 and 12 years of age to
tend his first experimental cotton mill at Pawtucket, R.I., in 1790.
» “ Child Labor in German Agriculture During the Last Twenty Years
in International Labor Review, y 0l. 1 3 } no, 5 (May 1926), pp. 717-728.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Book review

CHILD LABOR

From that day children have been an important part o f the labor
force in our textile industries. A t first the employment o f children
in mills, far from arousing protests, was hailed as an opportunity
profitable both for them and for the community. In Colonial times
children had enjoyed little leisure or play time—the Puritan tradi
tion against idleness was too strong. Massachusetts had legislated
at intervals since 1640 concerning the compulsory useful employ
ment of children, whether their parents were poor or well to do. The
same attitude prevailed among the Friends in Pennsylvania. The
moral precept was reinforced by a commercial incentive. Woman
and child labor were a valuable asset to the colonies in their efforts
to become self-sufficient in the manufacture o f textiles and articles
o f clothing, even in the pre-revolutionary and pre-industrial era.
From Virginia, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts come ac
counts that young children were set to spinning and carding in the
homes “ in swarms,” or were assembled in spinning schools and
factories. Hamilton, in his famous report on manufactures (1791),
argued that to promote the manufacturing industry would render
women* and children more useful “ and the latter more early useful ”
than had hitherto been the case.4 In the first mechanized stages o f the
cotton industry, children from the age o f 8 years were extensively
used both in operations performed in the mill and in home work
shops. When the bales of cotton were opened children too small to
work in the factory spread the cotton on a whipping machine and
beat it with sticks. Picking and beating remained a hand operation
until 1820. The first spinning machines were so simple to operate
that they were tended exclusively by children under adult super
vision. By putting all the machinery into one room a single man
could oversee the work o f 100 children. As the industry outgrew
the local supply o f children, mills advertised for families with 5
or 6 children to come and settle near the mill.
The introduction o f the power loom, however, brought something
o f a change. Young children no longer sufficed. The Boston Manu
facturing Co. in 1818 introduced both power-loom operating and a
new labor system at Waltham. The sponsors of this enterprise
wished to avoid a mill village population accustomed to nothing but
mill work from an early age. They deliberately recruited young
women from the farms and boarded them in company boarding
houses under the charge of respectable matrons. It became the
vogue for girls to work in the mills for a few years to earn their
dowries. The new power looms were operated exclusively by girls
and women, who soon displaced children at the spinning frames
also. Their labor, although more expensive, proved a great deal
more efficient. The mills o f Lowell thus acquired the reputation of
being free o f child labor. It must be borne in mind, however, that
in those days girls o f 15 and over were considered “ young women.”
In the first half o f the nineteenth century “ child labor ” commonly
meant the labor o f children under 14 certainly, and probably under
12. Even so, a not inconsiderable number o f young children con
tinued in the mills at doffing and miscellaneous occupations. It was
common for children to go to work at 10, 11, or even 8 years o f age.
4 Report of the Secretary of the Treasury (Alexander Hamilton) on the Subject of
Manufactures, Fifth of December 1791, pp, 29-30. Philadelphia, Jan. 1 , 1824.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOR

In mills that used “ family labor,” notably those in Rhode Island, the
proportion o f child workers was higher than in the neighboring
States. In 1820, according to the Digest o f Manufactures, “ chil
dren ” (age not defined) constituted 43 percent of the labor force of
textile mills in Massachusetts, 47 percent in Connecticut, and 55 per
cent in Rhode Island. By 1832 the percentage had been very greatly
reduced in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and even in Rhode Island
it had been reduced to 41 percent. In New York at the time “ chil
dren ” constituted about 8 percent of the mill forces.5
GROWTH OF CHILD-LABOR LEGISLATION IN THE UNITED STATES

The first aspect o f child labor to attract public attention in the
United States was the interference with education by long hours of
work. Interest in universal compulsory education dates back to
seventeenth-century Massachusetts and Connecticut. The high ideals
o f the early settlers in the matter of education, embodied in a re
markable Massachusetts law of 1647, fell into neglect under their
eighteenth-century successors but were never entirely lost sight
of. Even the first mill-owners, like Slater, felt impelled, by a vague
pressure of public opinion, to provide elementary literary, together
with moral and religious, instruction for their young operatives, in
Sunday schools or night schools. No one seems to have questioned
a child’s ability to learn his letters after working a 12-hour day or
longer. In 1825 a committee of the Massachusetts legislature, at
the suggestion o f the Governor, investigated the educational-indus
trial problem of child labor. The committee found that 2 or 3
months a year was allotted to schooling in some places, sometimes
at the expense of the companies, but that on the whole school facili
ties were inadequate. Yet it did not recommend legislative action
nor comment upon the health hazard to young children working 12
or 13 hours a day, 6 days a week. The provision o f school facilities
for mill children continued to be left very largely to the initiative
and generosity o f the companies.
The first workingmen’s associations in the early thirties protested
against the long hours of children in the mills, on the ground that
such hours were injurious to the health and the education o f future
citizens. They collected estimates as to the extent o f child employ
ment and memorialized Congress to regulate it. Their impassioned
denunciation probably helped to secure the Massachusetts law o f 1836
providing that children under 15 employed in manufacturing estab
lishments had to attend school at least 3 months in the year. In
1842 the daily hours of children under 12 were limited to 10 a day in
Massachusetts; in Connecticut this provision was applied to children
under 14. Conditions in Rhode Island—where more children were
employed—were still unregulated as late as 1853, when a legisla
tive committee found 1,857 children under 15 working 12 hours a day
and 11 to 12 months in the year. O f these children, 59 were under
9, and 621 were between 9 and 12. An act followed that both re
stricted hours o f labor to 11 a day and set an educational requirement
for working children. After 1850 a number of States began to pro5 Report on Condition of Women and Child Wage-earners in the United States, vol. 6 ,
pp. 52-53. Senate Document No. 645. Washington, 1910.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

c h il d

labor

hibit altogether the employment of children under certain ages in
manufacturing industries. These several types o f laws were grad
ually adopted by one State after another, with varying requirements
as to age, hours, and methods o f enforcement. On the whole the
laws were largely ineffective because inadequately framed and en
forced, and because the standards, low as they seem by modern
comparisons, did not command general support, either from parents
or from employers. It was customary, and had always been so,
for children to work long hours on farms and in homes, as soon as
they were able, and since working-class families felt they could ill
spare even the meager earnings of the youngest members, and did not
appreciate the relation between the low wages of children and ox
their parents, child labor continued, in violation o f the laws and in
the numerous fields not covered by law, throughout the century.
Following the Civil War great strides were made in the growth o l
industries, cities, and means o f transportation and communication.
Although the East, which had a head start, made the most rapid
progress, all parts o f the country were affected in some degree. One
result was to create a host of new opportunities for the employment
o f children, not only in industrial work but also in such typical child
employments as messenger and store work, street trades, and simple
clerical work. A startling rise took place in the numbers and pro
portion o f working children. A t the same time immigrants poured
into the New England mill towns, at first Irish, French Canadians,
Poles and others, and were forced to work for less pay and under
worse conditions than the native workers who could, in turn, move
up into better jobs. The children of the immigrants often went to
work at 7 or 8 years o f age, with the result that many o f them grew
up illiterate. Even by 1866 conditions were so bad that agitation
in Massachusetts led to a new and rather drastic law, by which chil
dren under 10 were barred from factory employment, an 8-hour day
was required for those between 10 and 14 years, and 6 months annual
schooling was made compulsory. Pressure from manufacturers,
however, soon procured the lowering o f this educational standard,
and the insertion of a clause which provided that only the employer
who “ knowingly ” violated the act could be penalized. In 1874 the
long-continued 10-hour agitation finally bore fruit in Massachusetts
in a law limiting hours for women and for minors under 18 to 10 a
day and 60 a week in textile factories.
.
,
,
In the eighties the introduction of labor-saving devices made the
employment of young untrained workers possible in other manufac
turing industries. Complaints were heard from skilled craftsmen in
the cigar-making and wood-working trades concerning the disorgani
zation o f conditions in those trades by the competition o f cheap child
labor. Home work in tenements was a feature not only o f the cigar
trade but of the ready-made garment industries, which began to
flourish from the nineties on.
,
„
The decades o f the eighties and nineties mark the emergence o f a
social consciousness o f the modern child-labor problem m the United
States. There are many indications of a growing awareness: in
1870 the U.S. Census Bureau began to collect information concerning
occupations for persons 11 years of age and over instead of 15 years

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOR

and over as in earlier censuses.6 In 1881 the first convention o f the
American Federation o f Labor adopted a plank calling for complete
abolition by the States o f the employment o f children under 14, in
any capacity. In 1883, at hearings before a Senate committee on
the subject of relations between capital and labor, a few workingmen
in their testimony called attention to the over-working o f young boys
and girls in department stores, as messengers and cash girls, and to
the mere pittances paid, $2 or $1.50 a%week and even less. Other
testimony related to newsboys and bootblacks; this was apparently
the first time that public opinion was directed to these important
child-employing occupations. In 1890 a prize was offered for the
best essay on child labor. Two winning essays were published, one
indicting child labor on the grounds of injustice to the child and
high ultimate social costs, the other on the grounds o f economic in
efficiency and harmful competition with adult wages. In the years
following the founding of Hull House the welfare o f children, their
work, their leisure, and their home conditions became the special
province of the settlement-house residents. About the beginning of
the twentieth century national organizations appeared to supplement
local efforts at reform, the National Consumers’ League in 1899 and
the National Child Labor Committee in 1904.
Stimulated by a vigorous, if limited, public opinion, many improve
ments were made, in a piecemeal fashion, in State regulation o f the
employment o f children. Measured by modern standards the laws
and means o f enforcement even in relatively advanced States were
still inadequate, but at least a process o f experimentation and slow
improvement had begun. Here and there State factory inspectors
were appointed. Partly under the influence o f restrictive legislation
the employment o f children showed a decline for the first time
between 1880 and 1890. About 1900 a few child-labor laws began
to prohibit the employment o f children at unhealthful occupations
and on dangerous machines, sometimes listing machines or
occupations.
In 1907 the National Government took cognizance o f the problem
in a comprehensive investigation into the condition o f woman and
child wage earners, conducted by the Bureau o f Labor in the Depart
ment o f Commerce and Labor. The report o f this investigation dis
closed that 20 percent o f the operatives in the textile industry in the
South; 23 percent in the silk industry in Pennsylvania; and 10 per
cent in the glass industry, which was widely distributed, were chil
dren under 16.7 It was generally customary for industrial workers
to set their children to work as soon as the legal minimum age was
reached, commonly between 12 and 14 years o f age. Between 84 and
96 percent o f the children o f 14 and 15 in families connected with
the textile, silk, or glass industries were at work. The report also
indicated that juvenile delinquency was more frequent among work
ing children than among nonworking children.8 It brought together
8 CMM Labor in the United States, p. 7. U.S. Bureau of the Census BulL No. 69.
Washington 1907.
7 Summary of the Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage Earners in the
United States, pp. 38, 118, 171. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Bull. No. 175. Washington, 191o.
8 Ibid., pp. 29, 274

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

C H IL D LABOR

a mass o f facts about children—their health, living conditions, occu
pations, and reasons for leaving school. In 1912 the Federal Chil
dren’s Bureau was established and directed by Congress to investigate
and report upon all matters pertaining to the welfare of children,
including all phases o f child employment.
Years o f protracted effort to secure a Federal child-labor law
culminated in the passage o f the Keating-Owen bill by Congress
in September 1916. This bill prohibited the shipment in interstate
or foreign commerce o f goods produced in mines, quarries, factories,
canneries, or workshops in which children were employed in violation
o f specified age and hour standards. The law was administered by
the United States Children’s Bureau between September 1,1917, and
June 3,1918, when it was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme
Court in a 5 to 4 decision.9 Both sides of the court cited precedents
in which Congress had used its power over interstate commerce for
police purposes, but the majority drew a distinction between a pro
hibition o f shipment o f articles in themselves injurious, and a
prohibition affecting articles in themselves harmless as a means of
regulating the conditions under which they were produced.
An attempt was then made to meet the objections o f the Supreme
Court by levying a tax o f 10 percent on the annual net profits o f
any establishment employing child labor in violation o f the stand
ard. But on May 15, 1922, this child labor tax law, which had been
in operation since April 25, 1919, was declared unconstitutional by
the Supreme Court, with only one dissenting voice, on the ground
that it was not a valid exercise o f the taxing power o f Congress and
that its real objects were too remote from its avowed objects.10
Next the advocates of child-labor reform tried another avenue for
achieving Federal control—a constitutional amendment. In the
early summer o f 1924, by joint resolution o f Congress, an amend
ment giving Congress power to “ limit, regulate, and prohibit the
labor of persons under 18 years of age ” was started on its round
o f the State legislatures for ratification. Up to August 1933, 15
States had ratified—Arkansas, Arizona, California, Wisconsin, Mon
tana, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, North Dakota, Michigan, Ohio,
New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Illinois.
INTERNATIONAL REGULATION OF CHILD LABOR

A hopeful beginning o f a semiofficial international movement for
coordinating efforts to deal with child labor and other labor prob
lems was interrupted in 1914 by the W orld War. (Early in the
twentieth century the International Association for Labor Legisla
tion had set up a labor office at Basel, partly subsidized by govern
ments, to collect statistics and publish reports. It was also instru
mental in organizing an international conference at Berne in 1906, to
which a number of European governments sent delegates. This con
ference recommended the prohibition of employment of women and
girls at night. In 1913 another conference proposed to extend this
prohibition to all young persons—that is, to include boys. The
International Secretariat o f Trade Union Centres, including (in
9 H am m er v. Dagerihart, 247 U.S. 251.
10 B a iley v, D rexel Furniture Co. 259 U.S. 20.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

y jjp

CHILD LABOR

1913) the national federations of trade unions o f 19 countries, main
tained friendly relations with the international labor office, and took
some interest in promoting legislation for young persons.} A ll these
growing international ties and movements were broken up by the
war. Moreover, in all the warring European countries standards
o f labor protection were relaxed in order to promote intensive pro
duction. For children the effects were particularly serious. Their
education and training were neglected in order to swell the ranks
o f industrial recruits to take the places o f soldiers. The labor o f
women and children was called for in the fields as well as in the war
industries. In England it was estimated in 1918 that 600,000 chil
dren had prematurely withdrawn from school to enter industry.
Hours were lengthened, processes speeded up, and employment in
hazardous occupations was no longer forbidden. Schools were in
part disorganized, especially on the continent near the war zones,
by drafting teachers and commandeering school buildings for bar
racks and hospitals.
By the end o f the war a reaction was setting in against the reck
less use o f child labor. The strengthening o f workers’ organizations
helped to arouse public sentiment for raising pre-war standards in
regard to the employment, education, and industrial training of the
young. The wastage o f human resources by the war made it impera
tive for the stricken countries to pay greater attention to the health
and education o f the coming generations. France became alarmed
lest she should not be able to recruit enough skilled workers to re
place those killed or maimed, and lest her specialized industries
might have to rely upon foreign labor. England became aware o f
the deficiencies in her system o f education, and developed a keen
interest in technical education and in new types o f curricula. The
Fisher Education Act (1918) was hailed as a landmark because it
required compulsory school attendance of all children up to age I I
and proposed to set up an entirely new system o f compulsory con
tinuation schools for children over 14 years o f age and because it,
for the first time, regulated the employment o f children in all gainful
occupations.
The regulation o f child labor received a strong impetus, along
with other types o f labor legislation, from the founding o f the
International Labour Organization, an adjunct o f the League o f
Nations. Each year since 1919, when the first conference met in
Washington, the General Conference, composed of representatives
o f governments and o f the chief employers’ and workers’ organiza
tions of the member States, has met in Geneva. The conferences
draft conventions embodying standards for labor legislation, which
are submitted to the member States for ratification. A State that
ratifies is pledged to bring its national legislation at least up to the
minimum standard set in the convention. The International Labour
Office, located at Geneva close to the headquarters o f the League,
acts as the permanent secretariat of the conference. It is charged
with maintaining official contacts with the member governments
and with the organizations of workers ancL employers, thus both
facilitating and following up the work o f the conference. It also
collects and publishes a mass o f information through special in
quiries and through regularly established channels o f communica-

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

C H IL D LABOR

tion. The office has published information concerning child labor
and child-labor legislation in the various countries, and has com
piled comparisons of national laws on the subject.
S A number o f the international conventions relate to the employ
ment of minors, either exclusively or inclusively with adults. They
provide for an 8-hour day and a 48-hour week (all workers) ; min
imum age o f 14 for employment in industry, for regular employ
ment in agriculture, and for employment at sea ; prohibition of
night work by young persons under 18 ; prohibition of employment
o f children and women in painting work involving use of white
lead ; minimum age o f 18 for employment as trimmers and stokers ;
medical examination for young persons between 14 and 18 employed
at sea; fixing o f minimum wages in trades in which existing wage
rates are exceptionally low, particularly home-working Trades (all
workers). \Zln April 1932, a new convention concerning the age
for admission o f children to nonindustrial employment was drafted.
It provides that children over 12, but still o f compulsory schoolattendance age, may be employed only at light work outside school
hours, for not more than 2 hours a day on either school days or holi
days ; it prohibits work that is harmful to health or normal develop
ment or that may prejudice school attendance or the capacity to
benefit from instruction. It recommends that a higher age than
12 be established for street trading. Types of employment which
are thought o f as permissible but subject to regulation are : Running
errands, distributing newspapers, odd jobs in connection with
sports, and picking and selling flowers and fruits. It is interest
ing to note that these conventions are making some provision for
the great child-employing occupations so long left unregulated—
agriculture, industrial home work, and street trades.
The conventions applying specifically to children and young per
sons have been ratified by from 13 to 25 countries, but sometimes the
ratification o f important industrial countries is missing because their
legislation does not come up to the standards set in the conventions ;
sometimes legislation is adopted subsequent to ratification. The
8-hour day and 48-hour week convention and the minimum-wage
convention, which apply to all workers, have been ratified by 15 and
by 9 countries, respectively. The convention setting 14 as a minimum
age for employment in industrial undertakings without exemptions
has been ratified by 20 countries. Among these are Great Britain,
Belgium, Netherlands, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. France, Ger
many, Italy, Sweden, and Austria, however, are not in the list, chiefly
because they have exemptions permitting employment in case o f pov
erty or upon completion o f an educational requirement. The con
vention concerning prohibition of night work in industry has been
ratified by 25 countries, including Great Britain, Belgium, the
Netherlands, Austria, Poland, France, and Italy.11
A few countries o f Latin America enacted their first modern childlabor laws about the time o f the W orld War. However, the main
development occurred several years later, probably as a result of the
activities o f the International Labour Organization. Between 1924
11The Progress of Ratifications, January 1933.
Geneva, 1933.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

International Labour Office Chart.

CHILD LABOR

and 1932 half o f the Latin-American states enacted their first childlabor laws.12
The compulsory school-attendance laws in foreign countries, on the
whole, tend to keep children in school (where adequate school facil
ities exist) up to the age o f 14, although many countries excuse
younger children from school for various reasons, such as family ne
cessity, distance from school, and attaining a certain degree o f pro
ficiency. Employment outside school hours is generally permitted,
and to some extent regulated, beginning at the age o f 12. Children
under 12 may generally be employed by their own parents.
Apparently few attempts have been made in other countries to
regulate the hours of children and young persons apart from those
o f adults, the fact that both work in the same establishments being
cited as a deterrent. Although the hours of adult workers are more
generally regulated abroad than in the United States, and, therefore,
a large number of countries limit their young workers to an 8-hour
day and a 48-hour week, the fact remains that in about 20 countries
young persons under 18 are permitted to work more than 8 hours a
day. These include Italy, France, Denmark, Hungary, Sweden,
Great Britain, and certain Provinces in Canada and in Australia.
*'i'or the United States comparisons with the conventions are par
ticularly difficult because o f our Federal form o f Government. The
different stages o f economic development in different sections o f the
country contribute still further to lack of uniformity. uA majority of
the States, however, have conformed to the standard set in the hours
convention, so far as children under 16 are concerned; a number of
States have exceeded the standard in regard to minimum age for em
ployment in industry, although more Than a dozen fall short of this
standard in some respect; few o f the States regulate employment in
agriculture. *rAs to night work, although all but 2 States have legis
lated upon the subject, only 2 fully meet the standards set up in the
convention ;*the age limit may be only 16, instead o f 18, or it may
apply only to girls up to age 18, or the night period may be shorter
than the 11 hours specified in the convention. A t least a dozen States
have failed to regulate the employment o f minors in processes in
volving the use of white lead.✓ Fourteen States at the present time
have wage boards with power to establish minimum wage rates for
minors.13
READING REFERENCES

The following is a list o f references on the history o f child labor,
arranged according to the period discussed.
D unlop , O. J ocelyn ,

and R ichabid D. D e n m a n : English Apprenticeship and
T. Fisher Unwin, London, 1912.
T hompson , J ames W e stfa ll : An Economic and Social History of the Middle
Ages, ch. 28. Century Co., New York, 1928.
-----------Economic and Social History of Europe in the Later Middle Ages, ch. 17.
Century Co., New York, 1931.

Child Labour.

12Argentina, 1924 ; Brazil, 1927 ; Chili, 1924 ; Colombia, 1927 ; Costa Rica, 1932 ; Ecua
dor, 1928 : Guatamala, 1926 ; Mexico, Federal Constitution, 1917 ; first Federal law, 1931 ;
Peru. 1918 ; Venezuela, 1928.
18Cheyney, Alice S. : International Labor Standards and American Legislation. Geneva
Special Studies, vol. 2, no. 8 (August 1931). Geneva Research Information Committee.
182342°— 33------ 6

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

C H IL D LABOR

B oissonade, P rosper : Le Travail dans l’Europe chretienne au moyen age, books
2 and 3.

F. Alcan, Paris, 1921.

L evasseur, E m il e : Histoire des classes ouvrieres en France.

A . Rousseau,
Paris, 1900-01.
H ammond , J. L., and B arbara H ammond : Lord Shaftesbury. Harcourt, Brace
& Co., New York, 1923.
H u tch in s , B. L., and A. H arrison : A History of Factory Legislation. P. S.
King and Son, London, 1911.
R e h m , M a x : Das Kind in der Gesellschaft. Ernst Reinhardt, Munich, 1925.
L orwin , L ew is L . : Labor and Internationalism, ch. 14. Macmillan Co., New
York, 1929.
I nternational, L abour O rganization . D raft Conventions and Recommenda
tions. Geneva, 1932.
C h eyn ey , A lice S . : International Labor Standards and American Legislation
(a comparison).
Geneva Special Studies, vol. 2, no. 8 (August 1931).
Geneva Research Information Committee.
W are , C aroline F . : The Early New England Cotton Manufacture. Houghton
Mifflin Co., Boston, 1931.
A bbott, E dith : Women in Industry, pp. 327-351. D. Appleton & Co., New
York, 1910.
P ersons, C harles E . : The Early History of Factory Legislation in Massachu
setts, in Labor Laws and Their Enforcement, vol. 2 of Studies in Economic
Relations o f Women. Longman, Green & Co., New York, 1911.
American Economic Association Publications, vol. 5, no. 2. I— Child Labor,
by W illiam F. W illoughby; II— Child Labor, by Clare de Graffenried. Balti
more, March 1890.
Report o f the Secretary of the Treasury (Alexander Hamilton) on the subject
of Manufactures, 5th of December, 1791. Philadelphia, 1824.
E nsign , F orest C h e ste r : Compulsory School Attendance and Child Labor.
Athens Press, Iowa City, 1921.
Commons , J ohn R., and associates: History of Labour in the United States,
vol. 2. Macmillan & Co., New York, 1918.
Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 3. Child Labor, by Raymond G.
Fuller. Child W elfare Legislation, by Elsie Gluck. Macmillan Co., New
York, 1930.
U nited States Se n a t e : Report of the Committee of the Senate upon the Re
lations between Labor and Capital and Testimony Taken by the Committee.
5 vols. Washington, 1885.
L abor Statistics , B ureau of, U. S. D epartment of L abor :
Report on Condition of Wom an and Child Wage-earners in the United
States. Senate Doc. no. 645, vol. 6. Washington, 1910.
Summary of the Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage-earners
in the United States. Bulletin 175. Washington, 1916.
C hildren ’ s B ureau , U. S. D epartment of L abor :
Administration of the First Federal Child Labor Law. Publication No. 78.
Washington, 1921.
Annual Reports of the Chief. Washington, 1917-1932.
I nternational L abor R eview , May, 1926. Review of " Child Labor in German
Agriculture During the Last Twenty Y e a r s” , by Helene Simon.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

CHILD LABOR,

T able A .— Children 10 to 17 years old employed in specified manufacturing and
mechanical industries in the United States, 1920 and 1930, and percentage
change 1930 as compared with 1920
16 and 17 years

0
<N
01

0
C
O
01

Percent of
Change

oCSI
05

Percent of
change

14 and 15 years

1930

O
05

1930

Occupation and industry

Percent of
change 3

10 to 13 years

-6 4 585,367 397,985

-3 2

Artisans3.................................... ............ 119
Apprentices____________________ _____ 1,219

31
301

-7 4
-7 5

1,831
17,756

520
3,870

-7 2
-7 8

29,751
81,681

19,437
34,469

-3 5
-5 8

574
171
118
356

170
45
36
50

-7 0
-7 4
-6 9
-8 6

6,406
1,818
2,953
6,579

1,563
303
594
1,410

-7 6
-8 3
-8 0
-7 9

47,925
1,781
6,352
25,623

17,987
1,556
3,879
11,047

-6 2
-1 3
-3 9
-5 7

844
83
91
54
230
13
378

-3 1
-4 4
-6 9
-8 0
-4 4
-8 3
-3 3

6,252
2,510
4,643
4,694
11,345
3,812
6,075

4,826
1,155
1,480
940
8,420
629
3,304

-2 3
-5 4

24,833
10,439
14,971
15,078
33,376
9,882
21, 732

30,589
9,379
8,377
8,619
36,550
5,286
19,845

+23

T otal..___________ ____________ 9,733 4,761

Building and hand trades_________
Dressmakers and milliners________
Printers and bookbinders.................
Others4_________________ ________

Operatives and laborers:
Building industry________________ 1,224
Chemical and allied industries........ 148
Cigar and tobacco factories________ 295
Clay, glass, and stone industries___ 274
Clothing industries........................... 412
76
Candy factories— . . . _________ _
564
Other food and allied industries___
Electrical machinery and supply
61
factories______ ____ _____ _____ _
Iron and steel, machinery, and
vehicle industries_______________ 630
89
Other metal industries-----------------131
Shoe factories____________________
Other leather industries (including
51
tanneries)_________ ____ ________
887
Saw and planing mills____________
Other lumber and furniture industries....................... ........... ............ 302
50
Paper and pulp m ills.......................
26
Paper-box factories_______________
Other paper, printing, and allied
industries........ ............................... 161
48
Textile industries— ...................... . 1,386

-5 1 175,919 63,505

-6 8

-8 0
-2 6
-8 3
-4 6

-1 0

-4 4
-4 3
+10

-4 7
-9

-4 6

1,831

558

-7 0

9,751

10,172

240
40
76

-6 2
-5 5
-4 2

12,274
3,677
7,414

2,050
906
2,106

-8 3
-7 5
-7 2

66,268
12,677
20,965

26,535
8,481
16,433

-6 0
-3 3

19
496

-6 3
-4 4

1,826
4,931

415
2,685

-7 7
-4 6

5,737
17, 870

3,309
12,555

-4 2
-3 0

150
28
7

-5 0
-4 4

4,465
1,223
1,764

1,459
255
265

-6 7
-7 9
-8 5

13,911
6,548
4,153

9,609
3,232
1,673

-3 1
-5 1
-6 0

78
31
484

-5 2

3,862
868
290
2,058
53,263 20,141

-8 6

-6 5

12,384
7,621
-6 2 109,115

8,594
3,554
82,617

-3 1
-5 3
-2 4

622
183
215
99
267

236
71
56
40
81

-6 2
-6 1
-7 4
-6 0
-7 0

21,253 10,395
7,808 3,426
9,808 3,540
874
6,978
7,416 1,906

-5 1
-5 6
-6 4
-8 7
-7 4

31,898
16,381
15,999
6,416
11,923

-2 4
-5 1
-2 9

Turpentine farms and distilleries . . . 396
Other manufacturing and mechanical occupations{----------------------- 1,184

565

+43

607

1,166

+92

1,034

1,968

+90

489

-5 9

17,806

5,197

-7 1

55,590

36, 702

-3 4

Cotton mills— ...........................
Knitting mills.............. ............
Silk mills.____ ____________ . . .
Woolen and worsted mills_____
Other textile mills......................

-7 8

40,726
17,484
20,939
13,113
16,853

-2 2

-2 2
-6

i Classifications as reported in 1920 changed to agree as nearly as possible with the 1930 classifications.
3 Not shown where number of children employed in 1920 was less than 50.
3 Includes bakers, carpenters, compositors, linotypers, typesetters, coopers, dressmakers and seam
stresses (not in factory), dyers, electrotypers, stereo typers, lithographers, enginèers (stationary), cranemen,
hoistmen, derrickmen, filers, grinders, buffers, polishers (metal), firemen (except locomotives and fire
department), foremen and overseers, furnacemen, smeltermen, heaters, puddlers, etc., oilers of machinery,
painters, glaziers, varnishers, enamelers, etc., shoemakers and cobblers (not in factory), tailors and tailoresses, upholsterers, paper hangers, and milliners and millinery dealers.
4 Includes jewelers, watchmakers, goldsmiths’ and silversmiths’ apprentices, and other apprentices in
manufacturing.
8 Includes operatives and laborers in broom and brush factories, button factories, electric light and power
plants, straw factories, other and miscellaneous manufacturing industries, other not specified manufacturing
industries, and not specified industries and services.
Compiled from Children in Qainful Occupations, U.S. Census, 1920 and 1930.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

APPENDIX— TABLES

T a b l e B .— Children 10 to IS years of age gainfully occupied, by S ta te ; 1930
Children 10 to 13 years of age
Engaged in gainful occupations
Division and State
Total

Total

Agricultural

Nonagriculturai

per Number Rate per
per
Number Rate
Number Rate
1,000
1,000
1,000
United States........ ........

9,622,492

235,328

205,563

New England______________
Maine....... ........................
New Hampshire________
Vermont_____ _______
Massachusetts__________
Rhode Island___________
Connecticut____________

611,655
59,490
33,681
26,970
310, 231
52,295
128,888

1,297
91
57
80
690

284
24

291

2
2
2

Middle Atlantic____________
New York_____ ________
New Jersey_____________
Pennsylvania___ ____

1,966,400
866,636
308,886
790,878

3,555
1,448
542
1,565

2
2
2

East North Central.................
Ohio____________ ____ _
Indiana___ ____ ____ . . .
Illinois.-___________ . . .
Michigan.. ___________
Wisconsin. ____________

1,868,246
491, 444
237,488
544,832
366,108
228, 374

7,778
2,458
1,325
1,758
1,384
853

West North Central________
■ Minnesota______________
Iowa___ _______________
Missouri.......................... .
North Dakota....... . . . .
South D a k o t a .._______
Nebraska_____________ .
Kansas___________ _____

1,028,411
202, 584
187,938
259,268
63,788
60,530
109, 382
144,921

7,711
1,095
1,231
2,898
575
398
623
891

South Atlantic_____________
Delaware..........................
Maryland___ ___________
District of Columbia____
Virginia________________
West Virginia___ _______
North Carolina______. . .
South Carolina_________
Georgia__________ ____ _
Florida......... ........... .........

1,408,539
18,298
123,070
26,381
216, 211
155,443
305,775
178,082
270,790
114,489

73,258
78
559
176
4,020
775
19,361
20,114
23,847
4,328

52
4
5
7
19
5
63
113

East South Central....______
Kentucky______________
Tennessee______________
Alabama___ ____ _______
Mississippi___ ________

872,341
223,534
224, 205
242,061
182,541

84,398
6,392
11,017
31, 565
35,424

West South Central_________
Arkansas.........................
Louisiana______________
Oklahoma______________
Texas_________________

1,041,641
169,621
182,876
207,823
481,321

Mountain__________________
Montana_______________
Idaho__________________
Wyoming____________ _
Colorado_______________
New Mexico____________
Arizona___________ _ _
Utah___________________
Nevada________________
Pacific__________ _________
Washington____ _____ _
Oregon____ ___________
California_________ _____
1 Less

2
2

0)
0

35
174
8

32
706
198

1
1
0
0
0
0
0

440

l
l
l

3
4
4

2,089
398
451
537
268
435

2
1
1
2

■7
5
7

4,797
702
533

5
3
3

2 ,201

8
8

4
5
6

9
7
6
6

503
281
232
345

5
2
2

66,104
62
203

47
3

3,240
617
18,549
18,818
21,425
3,290

97
29
49
130
194

50,949
14,817
11,273
3,489
21,370

308,056
45,366
39,973
17,482
79,522
37,356
34, 721
47,919
5,717

3,279
306
237
189
980
672
553
305
37

517,303
110,694
66,146
340,463

3,103
720
675
1,708

29,765

1,013
67
46
45
516
80
259

2
1
1
2
2
2
2

2,849
1,250
474
1,125

1
2
1

5,689
2,060
874

3
4
4

1,221

1,116
418

2,914
393
698
697
72
117
391
546

4
3
1
2

4
4

15
3
61
106
79
29

7,154
16
356
176
780
258
812
1,296
2,422
1,038

3
7
9
9

81,406
5,893
10, 248
30,579
34,686

93
26
46
126
190

2,992
499
769
986
738

3
4
4

49
87
62
17
44

47,394
14,423
10,339
2,909
19,723

45
85
57
14
41

3,555
394
934
580
1,647

5
3
3

2,285
197

7
4
3

994
109
117
43
326
107
131
144
17

7
6
11
12

18
16
6
6
6

120

146
654
565
422
161
20

498
140

122

236

than 1 per 1,000.

Compiled from Children in Gainful Occupations, U.S. Census, 1930.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

21
0

8
8

15
12

3
3
1
1
2
1

2,605
580
553
1,472

5
1

3
7
4
2

3
2

4
3
4
3
3
5
5
8

C H IL D LABOR

T a b l e C.— Children

14 and

15 years o f age gainfully occupied, by S ta te ; 1930
Children 14 and 15 years of age
Engaged in gainful occupations

Division and State

Total

•Agricultural

Total

Nonagricultural

per Number Rate per Number Rate per
Number Rate
1,000
1,000
1,000
United States_________

4,678,084

431,790

263,934

167,856

New England--------------------Maine_________ ____ —I.
New Hampshire________
Vermont_______________
Massachusetts______
Rhode Island— _______
Connecticut____________

294,870
28,663
16,248
13,075
151,181
24,578
61,125

18,990
941
583
651
9,184
2,229
5,402

64
33
36
50
61
91

1,990
297
92
326
727
117
431

17,000
644
491
325
8,457

2 ,1 1 2

10
6

25
5
5
7

5
4
4
7

46,223
17,400
9,354
19,469

49
41
63
51

13
5

17,493
9,753
1,841

19
16
16
25
19
16

950,223
421,279
147,841
381,103

51,261
19,016
9,992
22,253

54
45

East North Central_______ Ohio____ ______ ________
Indiana---- -------------------Illinois_________________
Michigan..
_________
Wisconsin. ____________

915,264
238,043
116,421
271,359
174,782
114,659

29,408
5,010
3,222
10,062
5,191
5,923

West North Central________
M innesota_____________
Iowa________________ -.
Missouri______ _______
North Dakota. ________
South Dakota_________
Nebraska_____________ .
Kansas. _______ ________

505,951
100,499
93,178
129,202
31,391
28,823
52,994
69,864

30,946
4,515
5,510
11,398
2,024
1,655
2,633
3,211

61
45
59

South Atlantic_____________
Delaware_______________
Maryland.. . __________
District of Columbia____
Virginia______________ _
West Virginia__________
North Carolina_________
South Carolina_________
Georgia___ ___________
Florida_____________ -.

680,219
8,422
57,996
12,734
103,858
72,232
148,797
86,505
133,987
55,6 8 8

124,427
455
5,928
447
10,826
3,263
31, 610
28,425
35,837
7,636

183
54

East South Central_________
Kentucky______________
Tennessee.. ___________
Alabama____ ______ ____
Mississippi_____________

425,609
107,676
108,379
120,097
89,457

91,225
11,857
15,269
31,837
32,262

214
141
265
361

79,576
9,506
12,118
28,070
29,882

West South Central.. ______
Arkansas_______________
Louisiana____ . . . ____
Oklahoma____________
Texas_________ _________

505,821
82,204
87,631
99,476
236,510

69,699
16,002
15,923
6,922
30,852

138
195
182
70
130

54,379
14, 565
11,246
4,998
23,570

Mountain................................
Montana.. ____________
Idaho____ ____ _____ . . .
Wyoming_______ _____ _
Colorado___________ . . .
New Mexico________ ___
Arizona_________ _______
Utah___________________
Nevada________________

145,475
21, 523
18,927
38,161
17,478
15,976
22,456
2,752

8,308
1,016
799
415
2,711
1,244
1,061
955
107

57
47
42
51
71
71
43
39

4,652
643
494
275
1,397
769
542
474
58

32
30
26
34
37
44
34

Pacific........ ............ ................
Washington____________
Oregon_____________ . . .
California______________

254,652
55,300
32,988
166,364

7,526
1,941
1,654
3,931

30
35
50
24

1,777
493
475
809

8 ,2 0 2

58
21

28
37
30
52

64
57
50
46

102

35
104
45
212

329
267
137
110

5,038
1,616
638
2,784
11,915
1,257
1,381
3,194
1,941
4,142

6 ,8 6 8

3,250
1,781

18,716
2,988
3,477
5,967
1,700
1,292
1,776
1,516

37
30
37
46
54
45
34

12,230
1,527
2,033
5,431
324
363
857
1,695

85,891
209
1,426

126
25
25

1 Less than 1 per 1,000.
Compiled from Children in Gainful Occupations, U.S. Census, 1930.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

12
12
11

6,864
1,763
23,587
21,283
26,370
4,387

30
25
56

4,971

Middle A tlantic.................
New York______________
New Jersey-------------------Pennsylvania___________

0)
66

24
159
246
197
79
187
88
112

234
334
108
177
128
50

38,536
246
4,502
445
3,962
1,500
8,023
7,142
9,467
3,249
11,649
2,351
3,151
3,767
2,380

24
15
22

42
10

13
16
24
57
29
78
35
38
21

54
83
71
58
27
22

29
31
27

15, 320
1,437
4,677
1,924
7,282

30
17
53
19
31
25
17
16
17
34
27
32

21
21

3,656
373
305
140
1,314
475
519
481
49

7
9
14
5

5,749
1,448
1,179
3,122

23
26
36
19

100

APPENDIX— TABLES

T a b l e D .— Children 16 and 17 years of age gainfully occupied, by S ta te ; 1930
Children 16 and 17 years of age
Engaged in gainful occupations
Division and State

Total

Agricultural

Nonagriculturai

Number Rate per Number Rate per Number Rate per
1,000
1,000
1,000

United States____ .

4,663,137 1,478,841

317

506,071

109

972,770

209

New England..........................
Maine_______ ______ _
New Hampshire________
Vermont ______________
Massachusetts__________
Rhode Island............. ......
Connecticut____________

289, 691
27,916
15,769
12,753
147, 627
25,396
60,230

106,997
7,109
5,212
3,763
50,650
13,827
26,436

369
255
331
295
343
544
439

7,416
1,376
557
1,515
2,157
363
1,448

26
49
35
119
15
14
24

99,581
5,733
4,655
2,248
48, 493
13,464
24,988

344
205
295
176
328
530
415

Middle Atlantic.....................
New York.........................
New Jersey_____________
Pennsylvania-............... .

941,157
420,052
147,629
373,476

351,673
153,895
65,245
132, 533

374
366
442
355

21,924
8,736
2,426
10,762

23
21

329,749
145,159
62,819
121,771

350
346
426
326

East North Central.. ______
Ohio___ ____ ___________
Indiana__________ ____ _
Illinois _______________
Michigan__________ ____
Wisconsin_____________

894,650
230,795
114, 727
272,342
167,197
109,589

231,245
50,629
26,857
83,960
41,392
28,407

258
219
234
308
248
259

51,821
8,388
7,838
12,484
9,929
13,182

179,424
42,241
19,019
71,476
31,463
15,225

201

West North Central................
Minnesota_____ _____
Iowa_____________ _____
Missouri___ ____ ______
North Dakota__________
South Dakota__________
Nebraska— _________ .
Kansas___ _____________

504,400
97,256
90,661
132,487
30,712
28,163
53,785
71,336

132,536
25, 535
21,495
43,310
7,437
6,425
13,029
15, 305

263
263
237
327
242
228
242
215

61,873
12,129
10,989
14,575
5,736
4,670
7,105
6,669

South Atlantic.... ............. . ...
Delaware__________ ____
Maryland. - _________
District of Columbia____
Virginia________________
West Virginia_____ _____
North Carolina_________
South Carolina_________
Georgia.. _____________
Florida________ ______ —

684,991
8,569
58,840
13,365
104,501
72,195
148,633
86,710
136,036
56,142

264,993
2,947
24,169
3,232
33,795
16,669
60,926
43,908
61,724
17,623

387
344
411
242
323
231
410
506
454
314

131,665
738
4,279
17
14,671
5,492
35,287
27,680
36, 654
6,847

East South Central.,_______
Kentucky______________
Tennessee_____ _________
Alabama.... ........... .
—
Mississippi_____________

433,828
105,622
112,960
123,494
91,752

164,031
30, 747
36,632
53, 265
43,387

378
291
324
431
473

111, 511
17,363
20, 520
37,099
36,529

West South Central_________
Arkansas________ ____ _
Louisiana______________
Oklahoma.........................
Texas___ ______ ________

516,653
82,395
87,624
102,189
244,445

153,665
26,499
32,259
21,385
73,522

297
322
368
209
301

Mountain______ ___________
Montana______________
Idaho__________________
Wyoming______________
Colorado_______ _
—
New Mexico____________
Arizona________________
Utah___________________
Nevada______________ ..

142,218
20,468
18,231
8,014
38,285
17,396
16,064
21,072

220

2,688

31,359
4,351
3,588
1,684
9,624
4,004
3,981
3,678
449

Pacific................................. . .
Washington____________
Oregon_________________
California______________

255,549
55,021
33,525
167,003

42,342
9,585
7,201
25, 556

58
36
68

46
59
120

123
125

183
166
262
188
139

70,663
13,406
10,506
28,735
1,701
1,755
5,924
8,636

140
138
116
217
55
62

122

133,328
2,209
19,890
3,215
19,124
11,177
25,639
16,228
25,070
10, 776

195
258
338
241
183
155
172
187
184
192

257
164
182
300
398

52,520
13,384
16,112
16,166
6,858

121

95,468
20,885
17,434
12,959
44,190

185
253
199
127
181

58,197
5,614
14,825
8,426
29,332

113

100

17,073

120

109

2 ,111

110

251
230
248
175
167

14,286
2,240
1,998
911
4,044
2,049
1,580
1,295
169

114
106
118
98
61
63

1,590
'773
5,580
1:955
2,401
2,383
280

103
87
96
146
149
113
104

166
174
215
153

10,107
2,226
2,048
5,833

40
40
61
35

32,235
7,359
5,153
19; 723

126
134
154
118

213
197
210

Complied from Children In Gainfui Occupations, U.S. Census, 1930.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

16
29

121
110

187
166
132
93
192
86

73
1

140
76
237
319
269

110
121

127
143
131
75

169
82
120

112

CHILD LABOR

3le E .— Children H and 15 years old employed in each main occupational
change in agricultural and nonagricultural

All occupation groups

Agricultural occupations

N onagricultural occupations

Divisions and States
1920

United States.

1930

682, 795 431,790

Percent of
change

1920

1030

-3 7 315,877 263,934
-6 6

2,405

1,990

Percent of
change2

1920

1930

Percent of
change

-1 6 366,918 167,856

-5 4

53,835

17,000

-6 8

644
491
325
8,457
4,971
46, 223

-6 3
-5 8
-5 1
-7 3
-7 4
-5 2
-6 0

New England.

56,240

18,990

Maine__________
New Hampshire..
Vermont________
Massachusetts___
Rhode Island-----Connecticut_____
Middle Atlantic.

2,252
1,332
1,070
32,292
8,383
10,911
122,645

941
583
651
9,184
2,229
5,402
51,261

-5 8
-5 6
-3 9
-7 2
-7 3
-5 0
-5 8

531
157
412
698
107
500
6,759

297
92
326
727
117
431
5,038

-4 4
-41
+4
+9
-1 4
-2 5

1,721
1,175
658
31,594
8,276
10,411
115,886

New York-------New Jersey------Pennsylvania—
East North Central.

47,024
24,796
50,825
86,239

19,016
9,992
22,253
29,408

-6 0
-6 0
-5 6

1,959
755
4,045
18,315

1,616
638
2,784
11,915

-1 8
-1 5
-3 1
-3 5

45,065
24,041
46, 780
67,924

17,400
9,354
19,469
17,493

-6 1
-61
-5 8
-7 4

5,010
3,222
10,062
5,191
5,923
30,946
4,515
5,510
11,398
2,024
1,655
2,633
3,211
124,427
455
5,928
447
10,826
3,263
31,610
28,425
35,837
7,636
91,225
11, 587
15,269
31,837
32,262
69,699
16,002
15,923
6,922
30,852
8,308
1,016
799
415
2,711
1,244
1,061
955
107
7,526
1,941
1,654
3,931

-6 5
-7 7
-7 0
-5 1
-5 8
-3 1
-3 1
-2 3
-3 8

-5 7
-6 3
-2 9
-2 7
-9

11,588
10,276
28,817
7,822
9,421
24,047
2,978
3,871
11,841
356
491
1,710
2,800
49,778
908
8,376
1,607
8,117
2,841
10,118
5,534
9,240
3,037
19,395
4,865
6,038
5,252
3,240

3,753
1,841

-6 8

3
4

5
6

8
g

io
il

13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22

23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
61
52
53
54
55
56
57
58

14,498
Ohio—.......
13,964
Indiana—
33,299
Illinois___
10,496
Michigan. .
13,982
Wisconsin.
West North Central—— 45,047
6,504
Minnesota-----7,154
Iowa___ ‘-------18,264
Missouri-------1,845
North Dakota1,904
South Dakota.
4,014
Nebraska_____
5,362
Kansas_______
South Atlantic............... 150,434
1,167
Delaware____
10', 532
Maryland—
1,612
16,889
Virginia..---------5,431
West Virginia___
33i 487
North Carolina. ..
30,992
South Carolina. ..
43,937
Georgia-------------61387
Florida.................
East South Central... 106,210
16,930
Kentucky......... —
21,667
Tennessee_______
36,801
Alabama________
30,812
Mississippi..........
93,154
West South Central..
21,801
Arkansas..
19,188
Louisiana..
11,852
Oklahoma.
40,313
Texas____
10,606
Mountain.
1,059
Montana___
1,111
Idaho.............
466
Wyoming___
3,395
Colorado____
1,374
New Mexico.
1,443
Arizona_____
1,623
U ta h ..........
Nevada_____
. 12,220
Pacific.
. 3,545
Washington.
. 1,788
Oregon_____
. 6,887
California__

-6 6

+10

-1 3
-3 4
-4 0
-1 7
-6 1
-4 4
-7 2
-3 6
-4 0
-6
-8

-1 8
+20

-1 4
-3 0
-3 0
-1 3
+5
-2 5
-2 7
-1 7
-4 2
-2 3
-2 2

-4
-2 8
-1 1
-2 0

-9
-2 6
-41
— 21

-3 8
-4 5
-7
-4 3

1,257
1,381
3,194
1,941
4,142
18,716
21,000
2,988
3,526
3,477
3,283
5,967
6,423
1,700
1,489
1,292
1,413
1,776
2,304
1,516
2,562
100,656 85,891
209
259
1,426
2,156
2
5
6,864
8,772
1,763
2,590
23,369 23, 587
' 25,458 21,283
34,697 26,370
4,387
3,350
86,815 79,576
9,506
12,065
15,629 12,118
31,539 28,070
27,572 29,882
72,266 54,379
19,825 14,565
12,067 11,246
4,998
9,399
30,975 23,570
4,652
5,217
643
473
494
700
275
216
1,397
1,218
769
820
542
861
474
897
58
32
2,444
1,777
493
670
475
469
809
1,305
2,910
3,688
4,482
2,674
4j561

— 17

-2 1

-1 1

-1 5
+6

-7
+14
-9
-2 3
-4 1
-1 5
-1 9
-3 4
-2 2

-3 2
+1
-1 6
-2 4
+31
-8
-2 1
-2 2
-1 1
+8

-2 5
-2 7
-7
-4 7
-2 4
-1 1

+36
-2 9
+27
+15
-6

-3 7
-4 7
-2 7
-2 6
+1
-3 8

i Domestic and personal, public, and professional.

Not shown where number of children employed in 1920 was less than 50.

. I ¡ompiled from Children in Gainful Occupations, U.S. Census, 1920 and 1930.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

2 0,888

1,976
7,121
2,453
9,338
5,389
586
411
250
2,177
554
582
726
103
9,776
2,875
1,319
5,582

2 ,1 1 2

6,8 6 8

3,250
1,781
12,230
1,527
2,033
5,431
324
363
857
1,695
38,536
246
4,502
445
3,962
1,500
8,023
7,142
9,467
3,249
11,649
2,351
3,151
3,767
2,380
15,320
1,437
4,677
1,924
7,282
3,656
373
305
140
1,314
475
519
481
49
5,749
1,448
1,179
3,122

-8 2
-7 6
-5 8
-81
-49
-4 9
-4 7
-5 4
-9
-2 6
-5 0
-3 9
-2 3
-7 3
-4 6
-7 2
-51
-4 7
-2 1

+29
+2

+7
-4 0
-5 2
-4 8
-2 8
-2 7
-2 7
-2 7
-3 4
-2 2
-2 2

-3 2
-3 6
-2 6
-4 4
-4 0
-1 4
-1 1

-3 4
-5 2
-41
-5 0
-1 1

—44

APPENDIX— TABLES

group in each geographic division and State in 1920 and 1930, and percentage
occupations in 1930 as compared with 1920
Manufacturing Transportation
and mechanical and communi
industries
cation

Trade

Clerical
occupations

Service
occupations

Forestry and
fishing and
extraction of
minerals

1920

1930

1920

1930

1920

1930

1920

1930

1920

1930

1920

1930

175,919

63,505

17,013

8,134

46,391

34,869

72,977

16,100

45,987

42,861

8,631

2,387

38,902

9,062

1,037

593

4,160

2,318

6,622

1,504

2,878

3,426

236

801
806
256
23,369
6,896
6,774
59,305

168
290
91
4,601
1, 356
2,556
21,203

80
29
27
634
90
177
3,529

28
9

197
106
2,203
372
1,171
11,786

90
77
37
4,109
• 718
1,591
29,742

333
52
151
1,841

98
60
44

9
796
165
498
8,692

404
139
198
1,245
195
697
8,178

286
118
155
1,567
249
1,051
7,859

149
18
29
34
5
i
3,346

17,161
15,229
20, 915
28,566

5,342
4,800
11,061
3,406

1,687
659
1,183
2,828

916
323
602
840

5,100
1,973
4,713
11,039

18,512
4,932
6,298
16,160

5,893
1,115
1,684
1,493

2,553
4,405
8,224

2,435
X , 792
£632
5,622

52
28
3,266
1,107

289

4,558
404
4, 528
275
11,073
1,834
2,997
603
5,410
290
7,375
2,569
606
151
1,003
364
4, 550
1,601
40
26
107
54
428
113
641
260
24,360 18,726
391
104
3,644
1,923
185
56
3, 285
1,428
1,015
407
7,177
5,208
3, 560 4,456
3,920
4,002
1,183
1,142
7,341
3,506
1,521
527
2,517
1,119

555
595
944
469
265
1,754
198
346
"640
36
48
182
304
2,907
52
359
119
566
248
456
280
617

130
67
432

185
72
1,023
148
65
1,319
89
94

102

1,264
578
1,863
1,132
785
3,910
680
730
1,298
217
180
311
494
10,219
73
976
151
1,375
595
1,535
l ’ 607
2,863
1,044
4,080
864
957
1,380
879
4,927
465
1,526
580
2,356
1,248
139
107
50
419
207
183
129
14
1,570
397
307

2,092
1,441
10,056
1,263
1,308
5,280
648
592
3,229
36
45
302
428
6,609
227
2,018
637
936
184
523
298
1,388
398
1,994
715
584
442
253
3,573
190
1,436
280
1,667
988

331

91
700
60
103
327
19

2,373
1,991
3,943
1,644
1,088
4,625
689
918
1,763
65

2 ,0 2 0

1,1 1 2

1,283
5,926
706
2, 293
586
2,341
1,270
87
92
50
552
124
162
189
14
2,874
983
317
1,574

748
3,495
386
1,147
352
1,610
722
56
61
18
272
119
114
76
6

816
256
162
398

210

1,500
358
456
374
312
2,176

120

41
129
1,739
15
195
36
252
92
254
252
426
217
760
135
209
226
190
1,184

212

437
333
1,194
592
64
63 I
51 1
184
77
83
54
16
690
248
70
372

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

111

276
127
670
260
36
19
17
84
33
35
31
5
217
85
38
94

111

371
717
5,276
99
1,058
282
998
323
614
410
1,042
450
2,572
747
783
677
365
3,370
279
996
473
1,622
1,097
155
76
37
446
65
129
168

1,1 2 2

286
708
6,309
2,794
1,314
2 ,201

6,044
1,750
840
1,691
1,224
539
3,602
532
726
1,108
52
96
364
724
5,850
36
645
157
668

262
873
721
1,850
638
2,547
541
674
862
470
4,338
367
1,077
737
2,157
1,090
101

99
47
391
75
151
204

2,466
676
423
1,367

2,771
619
578
1,574

101

42
34
526
43
59
167
16
2,009
438
243
1,328

1,0 1 0

9
10

28
79
1,316
17
699
45
90
28
83
56
234
64
346
138
82
83
43
911
28
424
70
389
231
32
7
5
122
8

25
30
2

288
57
63
168

1 ,2 2 0

1,679
1,500
2,572
1,246
1,227
4,566
772
956
1,447
174
185
424
608
9,391
135
1,213
384
2,061
605
1,190
955
2,167
681
4,790
1,040
1,392
1,410
948
5,171
497
1,793
580
2,301
1,254
162
119
55
412
201

133
141
31
1,535
417
224
894

866

221

229
203
123
447
65
56
212

5
4
3

97~
40
2

38
4
7
319
20
10
88

g
25
23
ii
130
15
16
87
1
2

102

1,235
4
84

686

271
466
158
31
106
115
1,198
484
306
329
79
672
92
166

149
116
70
50
92
144
410
146

201

213
188
17
19
23
57
44
16
7
5
202

113
42
47

110

104
50
465
80
227
58
100

105
9
12

3
26
33
U
11

87
34
31
22

CHILD LABOR

T a b l e F. — Children 16 and 17 years old employed in each main occupational

change in agricultural and nanagricultural

1920

1930

United States. 1,712,648 1,478,841

Percent
of
change

+23

1,474
538
1,401
1,349
223
1,040
19,420

1,376
557
1,515
2,157
363
1,448
21,924

-7
+4

8,615
1,828
8,977
52,995
9,544
9,788
13,230
8,700
11,733
57,222
11,571
10,272
14,218
4,030
3,975
6,301
6,855
119,799
628
4,349
19
13,591
4,727
26,611
26,980
37,848
5,046
99,744
17, 817
20,005
32,908
29,014
93,351
22,965
15,863
13,901
40,622
11,788
1,556
1,855
558
2,955
1,702
1,316
1,708
138
8,788
2,139
1,649
5,000

8,736
2,426
10,762
51,821
8,388
7,838
12,484
9,929
13,182
61,873
12,129
10,989
14,575
5,736
4,670
7,105
6,669
131,665
738
4,279
17
14,671
5,492
35,287
27,680
36, 654
6,847
111, 511
17,363
20,520
37,099
36,529
95,468
20,885
17,434
12,959
44,190
14,286
2,240
1,998
911
4,044
2,049
1,580
1,295
169
10,107
2,226
2,048
5,833

106,997

-2 1

10,217
Maine________
7,481
New Hampshire
4,842
Vermont______
Massachusetts— 70,722
Ehode Island-..
15, 216
27,155
Connecticut___
Middle Atlantic.. 433,397

7,109
5,212
3,763
50,650
13,827
26,436
351,673

-3 0
-3 0

198,609
64,864
169,924
327,774
78,593
43,879
109,944
54,660
40,698
153,741
31,460
26,475
50,211
6,123
6,402
14, 216
18,854
257,391
3,600
28,942
6,166
36i 897

153,895
65,245
132,533
231,245
50,629
26,857
83,960
41,392
28,407
132,536
25,535
21,495
43,310
7,437
6,425
13,029
15,305
264,993
2,947
24,169
3,232
33; 795
16,669
60,926
43,908
61,724
17,623
164,031
30,747
36, 632
53,265
43,387
153, 665
26,499
32,259
21,385
73,522
31,359
4,351
3,588
1,684
9,624
4,004
3,981
3,678
449
42,342
9,585
7,201
25,556

-2 3

9
10
11
12

13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22

23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58

‘New York____
;New Jersey____
Pennsylvania__
E. N. Central___
Ohio____ _____
Indiana_______
Illinois________
Michigan_____
Wisconsin_____
W. N. Central.—
Minnesota____
Iowa..................
Missouri______
North Dakota..
South Dakota..
Nebraska_____
K a n s a s ...____
South Atlantic__
Delaware_____
Maryland_____
Virginia_______
West Virginia.
North Carolina.
South Carolina.
Georgia_______
Florida_______
E. S. Central- . . .
Kentucky_____
Tennessee_____
Alabama____ _
Mississippi____
W. S. C entral....
A rkansas..___
Louisiana_____
Oklahoma_____
Texas_________
Mountain_______
Montana...........
Idaho_________
Wyoming_____
Colorado______
New Mexico___
Arizona_______
U tah.......... ......
Nevada_______
Pacific..................
Washington___
Oregon.. . . . . .
California_____

20,112

48,935
39,006
59,083
14,650
160,070
35,802
37,743
49,691
36,834
156, 212
29,932
32, 250
24,041
69,989
32,722
4,372
3,900
1,753
10,467
3,661
3,332
4,721
516
55,708
13,976
7,618
34,114

Percent
of
change2

7,416

135,633

1930

6,025

New England___

1920

-1 4 469,132 506,071

3
4
5

N onagricul turai
occupations

Agricultural occupations

All occupation groups
'Divisions and
States

-2 2

-2 8
-9
-3
-1 9
+6
-2 2

-2 9
-3 6
-3 9
-2 4
-2 4
-3 0
-1 4
-1 9
-1 9
-1 4
+21

-8

-1 9
+3
-1 8
-1 6
—48
-8

-1 7
+25
+13
+20
+2

-1 4
-3
+7
+18
-2
-1 1

-1 1

+5
-4

-8

-4
-8

+9
+19
-2 2

-1 3
-2 4
-3 1
-5
-2 5

1920

1,243,516 972,770

+60
+63
+39
+13
+1

+33
+20
—2
-1 2
-2 0
-6

+14
+12
+8

+5
+7
+3
+42
+17
+13
-3
+10

+18
-2
+8

+16
+33
+3
-3
+36
+12

-3
+3
+13
+26
+2

-9
+10

-7
+9

+21

+44
+8

+63
+37
+20
+20

-2 4
+22

+15
+4
+24
+17

1 Domestic and personal, public, and professional.
2 Not shown where number of children employed in 1920 was less than 50.
3 Less than 1 percent.
Compiled from Children in Gainful Occupations, U.S. Census, 1920 and 1930.

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

1930

Percent
of
change
-2 2

99,581

-2 3

5,733
8,743
4,655
6,943
2,248
3,441
69,373 48,493
14,993 13,464
26,115 24,988
413,977 329,749

-3 4
-3 3
-3 5
-3 0

129; 608

189,994
63,036
160,947
274,779
69,049
34,091
96,714
45,960
28,965
96,519
19,889
16,203
35,993
2,093
2,427
7,915
11,999
137,592
2,972
24,593
6,147
23,306
15,385
22,324
12,026
21,235
9,604
60,326
17,985
17,738
16,783
7,820
62,861
6,967
16,387
10,140
29,367
20,934
2,816
2,045
1,195
7,512
1,959
2,016
3,013
378
46,920
11,837
5,969
29,114

145,159
62,819
121,771
179,424
42,241
19,019
71,476
31,463
15, 225
70, 663
13,406
10,506
28,735
1,701
1,755
5,924
8,636
133,328
2,209
19,890
3, 215
19,124
11,177
25,639
16, 228
25,070
10,776
52,520
13,384
16,112
16,166
6,858
58,197
5,614
14, 825
8,426
29,332
17,073
2 , 111
1,590
773
5,580
1,955
2,401
2,383
280
32,235
7,359
5,153
19,723

-1 0

-4
-2 0

-2 4

-2 4
-3 5
-3 9
-4 4
-2 6
-3 2
-4 7
-2 7
-3 3
-3 5
-2 0

-1 9
-2 8
-2 5
-2 8
-3
-2 6
-1 9
-4 8
-1 8
-2 7
+15
+35
+18
+12

-1 3
-2 6
-9
-4
-1 2

-7
-1 9
-1 0

-1 7

-1 8
-2 5
-2 2

-3 5
-2 6

+19
-2 1

-2 6
-3 1
-3 8
-1 4
-3 2

APPENDIX— TABLES

group in each geographic division and State in 1920 and 1930, and percentage
occupations in 1930 as compared with 1920
Manufacturing Transportation
and mechanical and communi
industries
cation
1920

1930

685,367 397,985

1920

88,407

1930

Clerical
occupations

Service
occupations 1

1920

Trade

1920

1930

66,338 134,810 138,348 240,133 155,379 143,452 190,500

Forestry and
fishing and
extraction of
minerals
1920

1930

51,347

24,220

57,738

4,186

4,185

10,911

11,203

18,723

11,394

8,903

14,484

1,085

577

5,421
2,973
5,180
3,114
1,860
875
45,745 27,515
11,071
9,137
16,523 14,124
203,660 137,674

397
195
180
2,271
336
807
22,958

390
156
162
2,089
376

661
450
319
6,495
861
2,125
39,531

515
402
430
413
194
263
5,793 11,134
1,269
1,489
2,933
5,091
39,408 101,578

283
181
106
6,207
1,313
3,304
80,378

1,229
556
718
3,630
1,230
1,540
28,376

1,359
720
771
6,713
1,343
3,578
44,671

633
149
170
98

213
54
71
176
26
37
8,245

82,671
36,333
84,656
127,530
34,385
17,471
38,108
22,513
15,053
33,458
6,434
5,750
14,421
299
599
2,375
3,580
65,844
1,466
11,459
961
9,678
5,438
15,599
7,272
9,819
4,152
25,681
6,504
8,081
7,733
3,363
20,085
2,646
6,230
2,577
8,632
5,744
559
598
304
2,140
497
572
970
104
17,565
4,780
2,276
10,509

11,218
3,700
8,040
17,706
4,373
2,430
5,843
3,473
1,587
10,626
1,970
2,007
2,969
317
357
1,130
1,876
11,026
217
1,751
586
2,140
1,394
1,326
754
1,860
998
5,780
1,608
1,751
1,468
953
8 , 618
899
1,570
1,735
4,414
2,963
412
321
214
909
325
353
362
67
4,544
1,324
568
2,652

19,855
4,907
14,769
31,785
8,164
3,990
11,738
5,139
2,754
14,255
3,078
2,509
4,859
332
380

17,833
7,228
14,347
28,695
7,599
3,397
9,616
6,148
1,935
12,389
2,161
1,999
4,472
208
329
1,214
2,006
16,979
304
2,899
684
2,388
1,166
2,499
1,435
3,431
2,173
7,703
2,017
2,296
2,384
1,006
11,978
988
2,757
1,963
6,270
3,270
331
280
132
1,148
233
548
535
63
6,723
1,297
1,025
4,401

50,858
14,761
14,759
31,380
5,613
2,040
17,855
4,089
1,783
10,297
1,834
1,024
5,852
91
87
639
770
7,933
293
3,105

12,158
3,350

18, 243
7,260
19,168
39,023
10,728
4,468
11,060
8,235
4,532
19,415
4,612
3,251
5,326
997
787
2,029
2,413
29,570
401
3,267
1,060
4,842
2,317
4,301
3,552
6,641
3,189
12,597
2,825
3,490
4,024
2,258
16,852
1,704
4,127
2,630
8,391
5,170
697
453
257
1,548
719
728
677
91
8,718

85,800

47,445
30,000
60,229
65,483
14,781
7,675
27,086
10,085
5,856
21,802
3,621
3,048
10,781
240
372
1,437
2,303
64,729
1,106
9,100
553
' 8,501
3,720
16,629
9,948
11,802
3,370
21,0 02

4,174
7,473
6,912
2,443
15,987
1,793
4,305
1,903
7,986
4,225
451
481
147
1,373
549
603
575
46
9,345
2,532
1,670
5,143

1 ,0 1 2

19,373
10,582
3,491
5,300
12,776
2,709
1,260
5,220
2,587
1,0 0 0

5,901
1,011

1,004
1,954
155
174
597
1,006
8,929
96
1,168
229
1,539
940
1,320
875
1,706
1,056
4,692
1,242
1,382
1,303
765
6,090
. 553
1,172
916
3,449
1,944
308
174
108
538
268
268
239
41
2,448
620
364
1,464

1,2 0 2

1,895
13,027
300
2,700
798
2,353
1,154
1,490
859
2,182
1,191
6,548
2,217
2,016
1,542
773
8,725
865
2,105
1,357
4,398
3,108
465
298
113
1,174
222

337
451
48
6,920
1,614
844
4,462

63,676
14,622
23,280
59,062
12,804
4,596
28,987
8,396
<279
18,359
3,959
2,406
8,398
198
229
1,434
1,735
16,017
639
4,952
2,250
2,517
858
959
547
2,405
890
5,695
2,424
1,637
1,186
448
8,973
644
2,465
1,239
4,625
3,040
440
199
145
1,271
156
211

557
61
8 ,6 8 6

1,574
958
6,154

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

688

1,048
400
506
242
1,127
524
2,854
1,296
761
621
176
5,492
266
1,899
552
2,775
1,566
187
79
55
740
52
169
257
27
4,085
605
505
2,975

12,868

28,917
6,722
3,955
8,464
5,112
4,664
17,168
3,972
3,029
4,520
907
828
1,764
2,148
23,934
348
3,227
1,551
5,366
1,787
2,488
2,494
4,721
1,952
10,721
2,461
3,081
3,154
2,025
13,307
1, 515
3,480
2,003
6,309
4,412
676
465
259
1,388
554
432
561
77
7,714
1,789
974
4,951

1,8 8 8

1,284
5,546

29
17,874
416
124
17,334
9,779
2,601
1,649
3,574
1,327
628
2,653
476
502
826
40
34
10

765
7,744
2

504

198
79
7,968
2,067
811
179
639
319
119
859
167
180
350
10
6
8

138
5,188
9
351

1,252
4,754
' 462

806
2,634
'384
176
363
464
3,672
1,830
710
922

100

248
421
5,901
2,771
1,172
1,700
258
3,153
398
537
1,229
989
1,667
264
164
160
630
205
111
112
21

1,491
756
349
386

210

1,798
310
565
462
461
898
137
123
74
233
134
85
100
12

916
417
305
194

3
4
5
6

7
8

9
10
11
12

13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22

23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Full text of Child Labor : Facts and Figures, Bureau Publication No. 197

FRASER