Formation of the National Child Labor Committee
"The National Child Labor Committee was organized on April 25, 1904 at a mass meeting at Carnegie Hall in New York City attended by men and women concerned with the plight of working children. They moved quickly to form an organization, to gain the support of prominent Americans and to identify the extent and scope of the problem"
-National Child Labor Committee [2010]
Presenting the first paper at the meeting, Child Labor and Pauperism, Jane Addams described why child labor had become a pressing issue:
"With the invention of machinery the need of skill has been eliminated from many processes...strength has also been largely eliminated, so that a little child may mend the thread in a textile mill...This is true of many other industries, until it has come about that we are tempted as never before to use the labor of little children and that the temptation to exploit premature labor is peculiar to this industrial epoch" [1904] |
Reverend Murphy then spoke specifically to the issue of child labor in the cotton and textile industries:
"I am interested therefore in the question of child labor...[not merely because] I have seen [children] at labor in our factories for twelve and thirteen hours a day, not merely because I have seen them with their little fingers mangled by machinery and their little bodies numb and listless with exhaustion, but because I am not willing that our economic progress should be involved in such conditions" [1904] |
"In 1907 the NCLC was chartered by an Act of Congress, and immediately began to garner support and move towards action and advocacy" Their official mission was to:
"[promote] the rights, awareness, dignity, well-being and education of children and youth as they relate to work and working" -National Child Labor Committee [2010] |
"We’re not a union, we were an organization formed by grassroots initiatives very early in the twentieth century, that is a group of people who came together at Carnegie Hall in the winter of 1904 to address this one issue. Their focus was on this one issue of child labor, and their determination to make sure that they continued to pursue that issue rather than be distracted by other issues...if there is one thing that made the National Child Labor Committee successful...it was that single focus, that willingness to go to all different ends to make sure that happened, and most important of all, to make the public aware of it" -Jeffrey Newman, current President of the National Child Labor Committee (Student Conducted Interview)
A single focused, aggressive, and passionate group of leaders was desperately needed in the campaign against child labor. This was found in the National Child Labor Committee, an organization of individuals dedicated to exposing and eradicating child exploitation.
Thesis:
The leadership of the National Child Labor Committee piloted the social reform movement against the exploitation of children. By harnessing the power of propaganda to influence public opinion, the NCLC changed society’s perception, thus allowing for the passage of national legislation prohibiting the labor of children. The legacy of the NCLC lies not only in ending child labor, but also in establishing a precedent for future federal regulation of labor. |
Niharika Boinpally and Divya Pakianathan
Senior Group Website Word Count (Student Composed): 1166 Process Paper Word Count: 484 |