Child labor laws in the United States
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The United States has adopted numerous statutes and rules regulating the employment of minors, called child labor laws.
[edit] 19th century laws
In 1852, Massachusetts required children to attend school. In 1853, Charles Brace founded the Children's Aid Society, which worked hard to take street children in. The following year, the children were placed on a train headed for the West, where they were adopted, and often given work. By the late 1800s, the orphan train had stopped running altogether, but its principles lived on.
The National Child Labor Committee, an organization dedicated to the abolition of all child labor, was formed in 1904. It managed to pass one law, which was struck down by the Supreme Court two years later for violating a child's right to contract his work. In 1924, Congress attempted to pass a constitutional amendment that would authorize a national child labor law. This measure was blocked, and the bill was eventually dropped. It took the Great Depression to end child labor nationwide; adults had become so desperate for jobs that they would work for the same wage as children. In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act which, amongst other things, placed limits on many forms of child labor.
[edit] State child labor laws
Some states and localities have enacted their own child labor laws. For example, some states are more restrictive on the hours a child may work, include more jobs as hazardous, or require children to have permits to work. If an employer is located in a state or locality with its own child labor laws, the employer must comply with both state, local, and federal child labor laws. If a state and locality do not have their own child labor laws, employers need only comply with federal child labor laws.
