A 1900 census revealed that 2 million children were employed by mills, factories, and various other forms of labor. This announcement led to an increase in effort to put a stop to cruel child labor since it had proven to be so detrimental to the health and well being of children. The National Child Labor Committee employed Lewis Hine in to photograph and report on children. Dickens then published a novel depicting the poverty and unhealthy conditions that plagued London in the 1850s.
Then, in 1916, the Keating-Owen Child Labor Law was passed, becoming the nation's first child labor bill. Employing children less than fourteen to work in factories was deemed illegal and mines were not allowed to hire children under 16. Furthermore, children under the age of 16 were not allowed to work for more than 8 hours in a day. Although passed by congress and Wilson, the Act was declared unconstitutional by the supreme court. Instead the Child Labor Tax Law was passed in 1919 which also regulated child labor but was again deemed unconstitutional. Child Labor laws were not passed until the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938. This upheld constitutionality in the supreme court and is still enforced today.
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