A federal statute that outlawed the transportation of goods produced by CHILD LABOR, the Keating-Owen Act was the culmination of a Progressive Era movement to outlaw child labor. The act passed Congress on September 1, 1916, and went into effect on September 1, 1917. Before it could have much of an effect, however, it was challenged in federal court and ruled unconstitutional by the U. S. Supreme Court in June 1918.
Progressive reformers believed that child labor was the greatest evil threatening America’s children and thus the future of America. In 1900, 18 percent of children aged 10 to 15 worked, many of them in factories, mines, and mills. The millions of children working in dangerous conditions attracted the efforts of numerous reformers. Opponents of child labor initially sought to legislate against it in the states, but they realized that many states were unwilling to pass laws because their industries were dependent on the labor of children. Child labor law advocates therefore decided that federal legislation was necessary. The federal government did not, however, have the explicit constitutional power to prohibit child labor. Still, proponents of child labor laws believed that the federal government had the right to restrict interstate transport of goods produced by child laborers. By restricting the transport of these goods, the Keating-Owen Act effectively set national guidelines for child labor. It outlawed the labor of children under 14 years of age in factories, mills, and canneries, and under 16 years in mines and quarries. It also prohibited workers under 16 from working more than eight hours a day.
Opposition to the bill in Congress came from the states that employed more children than all others combined, the southern textile-producing states and Pennsylvania. Congressmen from these states argued that child labor was good for all involved. There were not enough schools, employers claimed, to handle all the children who would be thrown out of work by child labor laws. Work was therefore important in preventing delinquency by keeping children off the streets. It was also important for children to learn work skills early in life that would prepare them for careers as factory operatives. Opponents also claimed that workers over the age of 16 were too slow and clumsy and that only the nimble fingers of a child could handle some jobs. Prohibiting child labor would rob widow mothers of their sole means of support and restrict the children’s inherent right to work. These arguments were ineffective, and the Keating-Owen Act passed by a vote of 343 to 46 in the House of Representatives and in the Senate by 52 to 12, with 32 abstentions.
Almost immediately upon passage, the Keating-Owen Act was challenged in the federal courts. In a case brought by the executive committee of the Southern Cotton Manufacturers, a federal judge ruled the act unconstitutional. The case was then appealed to the U. S. Supreme Court. In Hammer v. Dagenhart, the Supreme Court judges ruled five to four that the law was unconstitutional. They argued that it was an unwarranted exercise of the federal government power to regulate commerce and an invasion of state’s rights. In the nine months in which it was in effect, the Keating-Owen Act freed 150,000 children from work in mines, factories, and mills. More importantly, it acted as a model for state legislation against child labor and helped spur efforts in many states to limit the labor of children under the age of 16.
Further reading: Walter Trattner, Crusade for the Children: A History of the National Child Labor Committee and Child Labor Reform in America (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1970).
—Michael Hartman
Kelley, Florence (1859-1932) social reformer, labor activist
One of the leading figures in Progressive Era reform, Florence Kelley dedicated her life to improving the lives of working men, women, and children. Born near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Kelley graduated from Cornell University in 1882. After the University of Pennsylvania refused to admit her to graduate study because she was a woman, Kelley began her career in reform. She joined the Philadelphia Woman’s Club and established and taught at an evening school for working women and children. On an 1883 European trip, Kelley discovered that the University of Zurich allowed women to earn graduate degrees, and she enrolled. While in Zurich, she became a socialist and translated several works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels into English. She also met her future husband, a Russian medical student, Lazare Wischnewtzky. The two married in 1884 and in 1886 moved to New York City. In 1891, in response to her husband’s physical abuse, Kelley took their three children and moved to Illinois. She moved there both because of Illinois’ lenient divorce laws and Chicago’s reputation for social reform.
Upon coming to Chicago, Kelley joined Jane Addams at Hull-House and took up residence in 1891. She took charge of the Hull-House Women’s Labor Bureau and convinced the Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics to hire her to investigate the conditions in Chicago’s sweatshops. Her work led to further appointments as an investigator for the federal commissioner of labor to study Chicago’s slums. Kelley uncovered the appalling conditions under which workers lived, and her findings spurred a movement to pass labor laws in Illinois. As a result of her investigation, the state of Illinois passed laws restricting CHILD LABOR, limiting the working hours of women, and regulating the conditions in sweatshops. In 1893, Kelley became Illinois’ first chief factory inspector. In 1897 the governor of Illinois replaced her with a patronage appointment, putting her out of work.
Kelley became the executive secretary of the National Consumers League, a position she held until her death. As league secretary, she lobbied on behalf of protective labor legislation for women and children. She helped establish 64 consumers’ leagues throughout the United States and traveled promoting policies agreed upon by the national board. Working with the Oregon consumers’ league, Kelley helped successfully defend the state’s 10-hour working-day legislation for women in the 1908 Muller v. Oregon case. Under her leadership, the National Consumers League became the most effective lobbying group for protective labor legislation for women and children. She also continued to campaign against child labor in a number of ways. A founder of the National Child Labor Committee in 1904, Kelley made the creation of the Children’s Bureau one of her top priorities. The effort was successful in 1912. Kelley was also instrumental in 1921 in the passage of the Sheppard-Towner Act. She died in 1932.
Further reading: Kathryn Kish Sklar, Florence Kelley and the Nation’s Work: The Rise of Women's Political Culture, 1830-1900 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press,
1995);-, ed., Florence Kelley, Notes of Sixty Years:
The Autobiography of Florence Kelley (Chicago: Charles
H. Kerr, 1986).
—Michael Hartman
World History
