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Child Labor in America

Joyce Kasman Valenza and Carl Atkinson

Child Labor in America Resource Page

On-line Resources: Search Tools | Child Labor in History | Museums | Child Labor Today

Search Tools

American Memory Collections:

Other Library of Congress Resources:

National Archive and Records Administration:

  • National Archive and Records Administration's Archival Research Catalog (ARC)
    http://www.archives.gov/research_room/arc/index.html
    Directions for searching the Archival Research Catalog:
    1. Click on the "Search" button on the ARC main page
    2. In the box marked "Search for descriptions of Archival Materials containing the following keyword(s)", enter your search phrase; for example: "Lewis Hine" and "child labor"
    3. Click "Go". (You may get several hundred "hits")
    4. You will see descriptions of items that match your search phrase, 10 to a page. Make sure that you are viewing the summaries (there is a link near the top of the page to “hide” and “show” summaries).

Child Labor in History

  • Child Labor and Labor Reform in American History
    http://history.osu.edu/Projects/ChildLabor/default.html
    Offers two moving, illustrated stories: Mr. Coal's Story, an appeal to end child labor in coal mines. (Originally told by the National Child Labor Committee to persuade Americans to support the regulation and elimination of child labor.) and  The Story of My Cotton Dress (scanned from The Child Labor Bulletin, August, 1914.)
  • Child Labour: Spartacus Educational
    http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/IRchild.main.htm
    Includes biographies on both sides of the issue as well as primary sources and statistics relating to child labor in 19th-century Britain.

Museums

Child Labor Today

  • Child Labor Coalition  
    http://www.stopchildlabor.org/
    The Child Labor Coalition is a national network for the exchange of information about child labor. The group provides a forum and educational outreach.
  • Child Rights Information Network: Child Labour 
    http://www.crin.org/themes/viewTheme.asp?ID=3&name=Child+labour
    Offers an international perspective on child labor practices, child sexual exploitation, the treatment of children with disabilities, and child soldiering. Also provides a searchable database of full text articles on children's rights.
  • Child Workers in Asia 
    http://www.cwa.tnet.co.th/
    CWA is a network of nongovernment organizations and individuals in various countries in Asia, which has been working for ten years to create change through grass-roots involvement and local advocacy.

  • End Child Labor and Sweatshop Abuses
    http://gbgm-umc.org/UMW/endchild.html#top
    A broad coalition of religious, human rights, labor, student, women's, and grassroots organizations presents a call to action against sweatshops.
  • Free the Children Central: Today's Youth, Today's Leaders  
    http://www.freethechildren.org/
    The site describes the activities of Free the Children, an international network of children helping children, whose first goal is  to stop the abuse and  exploitation of children around the world.
  • Global March Against Child Labour
    http://globalmarch.org/index.php
    The site documents the international protest march and provides information about the lives of child laborers, girl workers, education and child soldiers. 
  • International Child Labor Program
    http://www.dol.gov/ILAB/media/reports/iclp/main.htm
    This group, created by Congressional mandate, has prepared several informative, downloadable reports. 
  • Rugmark Foundation USA 
    http://www.rugmark.org/
    The Rugmark Foundation recruits carpet producers and importers to make or sell carpets that are free of child labor in its efforts toward eradicating child labor and supporting education programs for former child workers.
  • Save the Children: Child Labour
    http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/scuk/jsp/whatwedo/subtheme.jsp?section=exploitationprotection&subsection=childlabour
    The international U.K.-based child advocacy and relief organization supports programs that raise family income so children will not be forced to work and works to protect working children from exploitation.
  • Stolen Dreams (Harvard School of Public Health)
    http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/gallery/
    Photographs by David Parker, MD, show children working in the United States, Mexico, Thailand, Nepal, Bangladesh, Turkey, Morocco, Indonesia, and India.

Print Resources: Nonfiction | Historical Fiction | Periodicals

Nonfiction

  • Currie, Stephen. We Have Marched Together: The Working Children’s Crusade. Minneapolis: Lerner, 1997.

  • Gay, Kathlyn.  Child Labor : A Global Travesty. Brookfield, CT: Milbrook, 1998.

  • Kielburger, Craig. Free the Children : A Young Man's Personal Crusade Against Child Labor. New York: HarperCollins, 1999.

  • Freedman, Russell. Kids at Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade Against Child Labor. New York: Clarion, 1994.

  • Hoyt-Goldsmith, Diane. Migrant Worker : A Boy from the Rio Grande Valley. New York: Holiday House, 1996.

  • Meltzer, Milton. Cheap Raw Material: How our Youngest Workers are Exploited and Abused.  New York: Viking, 1994.

  • Parker, David L, Lee Engfer and Robert Conrow. Stolen Dreams: Portraits of Working Children. Minneapolis: Lerner, 1998.

  • Williams, Mary E. (ed.) Child Labor and Sweatshops At Issue Series.  San Diego: Greenhaven,  1999.

  • Mofford, Juliet H. (ed.) Child Labor in America: Perspectives on History Series. New York: Discovery, 1997.

Historical Fiction

  • Paterson, Katherine. Lyddie. New York: Lodestar, 1991.
    In this provocative historical novel, an impoverished young woman works at a dusty Lowell, Massachusetts factory in order to earn enough money to reunite her family.   Should she protest the poor working conditions at the mill?

Periodicals

Here are a few articles to get you started. Child labor is a major current issue.   Remember to check the periodical indexes at your school or public library for many more resources.

  • Hankin, Tom. "Put an End to the Exploitation of Child Labor." USA Today (magazine) Jan. 1996. 73-75.

  • Silvers, Jonathan. "Child Labor in Pakistan." Atlantic Monthly Feb. 96. 79-92.

  • Schanberg, Sydney H. "Six Cents an Hour." Life June 1996. 38-46.

  • Shanker, Albert. "A School for Iqbal." The New York Times Sept. 22, 1996. E7.

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Last updated 02/05/2004