The Time Mother Jones (The Woman) Sent Maimed Children To Shame Teddy Roosevelt
(sorry that this is a day late)
The Time Mother Jones (The Woman) Sent Maimed Children To Shame Teddy Roosevelt
Erik Loomis
July 07, 2023 01:13 PM
The Time Mother Jones (The Woman) Sent Maimed Children To Shame Teddy Roosevelt
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File:Mother Jones 02.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
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On July 7, 1903, Mary “Mother” Jones launched the Children’s Crusade in support of a Philadelphia textile strike and to raise awareness about the need to end child labor. Marching to President Theodore Roosevelt’s home on Long Island, Jones intended to pressure the supposedly reformist president into taking action. But he would not. Child labor had been central to the American workforce since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, especially in the textile industry. While the technology of textiles had changed dramatically, the basic labor strategy had not. Employers sought the lowest paid labor and whenever they could, that included children. States such as Alabama repealed their child labor laws just to attract New England-based textile firms avoiding unions. After 1900, this became a much larger part of the fight for change, both from organized labor and from Progressives such as Florence Kelley and the National Consumers League.
Although already an aging woman (though one who added 10 years or so to her age to make her seem older than she was) Mother Jones was still relatively early in her activist career. Known as Mother Jones by 1897, she had become a direct action force providing critical moral and organizing support for the nation’s fighting workers. She also had a great feel for the theatrical.
Philadelphia was a major home for textile factories at this time and they were concentrated in the Kensington area. In 1903, 46,000 workers went on strike, the largest strike in the city’s history to that time. They had several demands, including a reduction in hours to 55 per week and the end to night shifts for women and children. Some of the children working in these factories were only 10 years old, even though Pennsylvania had a law on the books that did not allow children under 13 to work. As was so frequent in this era, even if state did pass a law, it went largely or completely unenforced.
The strike was large and had grabbed the attention of labor leaders such as Eugene Debs. Though it had significant local support from Progressives, including several leading ministers, it struggled to get much attention from the city’s newspapers. See, the textile owners were close to the newspaper owners and sometimes shareholders in the papers. They didn’t report on the child labor issue at all. Meanwhile, Jones came to town to lend support. Finding out about this problem, she stated, “I’ve got stock in these little children, and I’ll arrange a little publicity.”
. . . .
But it would be inaccurate to say that the protest didn’t have positive consequences, even as the initial goal was lost. This happens in many protest movements, very much including Occupy Wall Street for example. The Children’s Crusade absolutely did make a lot of people aware of the horrible problems with child labor. Jones certainly believed it had ultimately been successful, as she wrote in her autobiography published late in her long life. In 1905, the state of Pennsylvania passed a new child labor law that moved the ball forward for that state. Congress passed the Keating-Owen Child Labor Act in 1916, but the typically reactionary Supreme Court overturned it in 1918. In 1924, Congress sent a Child Labor Amendment to the states for ratification to the Constitution. It has still not been ratified, but it could be and should be. Much child labor was finally eliminated in the Fair Labor Standards Act, with exceptions in areas such as child labor that still impact children in the United States today, such as the tobacco fields of North Carolina. Also, child labor still makes our clothing. But it’s overseas, so we basically don’t care and don’t do anything about it.
https://www.wonkette.com/the-time-mother-jones-the-woman-sent-maimed-children-to-shame-teddy-roosevelt