Chapter XXIX: Factory Children

In our educational movements, we early opened Night-schools for the poor children. During the winter of 1870-71, we had some eleven in operation, reaching a most interesting class of children--those working hard from eight to ten hours a day, and then coming with passionate eagerness for schooling in the evening.

The experience gained in these schools still further developed the fact, already known to us, of the great numbers of children of tender years in New York employed in factories, shops, trades, and other regular occupations. A child put at hard work in this way, is, as is well known, stunted in growth or enfeebled in health. He fails also to get what is considered as indispensable in this country for the safety of the State, a common-school education. He grows up weak in body and ignorant or untrained in mind. The parent or relative wants his wages, and insists on his laboring in a factory when he ought to be in an infant-school. The employer is in the habit of getting labor where he can find it, and does not much consider whether he is allowing his little _employes_ the time and leisure sufficient for preparing themselves for life. He excuses himself, too, by the plea that the child would be half-starved or thrown on the Poor-house but for this employment.

The universal experience is, that neither the benevolence of the manufacturer nor the conscience of the parent will prevent the steady employment of children of tender years in factory work, provided sufficient wages be offered. Probably, if the employer were approached by a reasonable person, and it was represented what a wrong he was doing to so young a laborer, or the parent were warned of his responsibility to educate a child he had brought into the world, they would both agree to the reasonableness of the position, and attempt to reform their ways. But the necessities of capital on the one side, and the wants of poverty on the other, soon put the children again at the loom, the machine, and the bench, and the result is--masses of little ones, bent and wan with early trial, and growing up mere machines of labor. England has found the evil terrible, and, during the past ten or fifteen years, has been legislating incessantly against it; protecting helpless infancy from the tyranny of capital and the greed of poverty, and securing a fair growth of body and mind for the children of the laboring poor.

There is something extremely touching in these Night-schools, in the eagerness of the needy boys and girls who have been toiling all day, to pick up a morsel of knowledge or gain a practical mental accomplishment. Their occupations are legion. The following are extracts from a recent report of one of our visitors on this subject. At the Crosby-street School, he says:--

"There were some hundred children; their occupations were as follows: They put up insect-powder, drive wagons, tend oyster-saloons; are tinsmiths, engravers, office-boys, in type-founderies, at screws, in blacksmith-shops; make cigars, polish, work at packing tobacco, in barber-shops, at paper-stands; are cashboys, light porters, make artificial flowers, work at hair; are errand-boys, make ink, are in Singer's sewing-machine factory, and printing-offices; some post bills, some are paint-scrapers, some peddlers; they pack snuff, attend poultry-stands at market, in shoe-stores and hat-stores, tend stands, and help painters and carpenters.

"At the Fifth-ward School (No. 141 Hudson Street), were fifty boys and girls. One of them, speaking of her occupation, said: 'I work at feathers, cutting the feathers from cock's tails. It is a very busy time now. They took in forty new hands today. I get three dollars and fifty cents a week; next week I'll get more. I go to work at eight o'clock and leave off at six. The feathers are cut from the stem, then steamed, and curled, and packed. They are sent then to Paris, but more South and West.' One boy said he worked at twisting twine; another drove a 'hoisting-horse,' another blacked boots, etc.

"At the Eleventh-ward School, foot of East Eleventh Street, there was an interesting class of boys and girls under thirteen years of age. One boy said he was employed during the day in making chains of beads, and says that a number of the boys and girls present are in the same business. Another said he worked at coloring maps. Another blows an organ for a music-teacher.

"At the Lord School, No. 207 Greenwich Street, the occupations of the girls were working in hair, striping tobacco, crochet, folding paper collars, house-work, tending baby, putting up papers in drug-store, etc, etc."

In making but a brief survey of the employment of children outside of our schools, we discover that there are from one thousand five hundred to two thousand children, under fifteen years of age, employed in a single branch--the manufacture of paper collars--while of those between fifteen and twenty years, the number reaches some eight thousand. In tobacco-factories in New York, Brooklyn, and the neighborhood, our agents found children _only four years of age_--sometimes half a dozen in a single room. Others were eight years of age, and ranged from that age up to fifteen years. Girls and boys of twelve to fourteen years earn from four dollars to five dollars a week. One little girl they saw, tending a machine, so small that she had to stand upon a box eighteen inches high to enable her to reach her work. In one room they found fifty children; some little girls, only eight years of age, earning three dollars per week. In another, there were children of eight and old women of sixty, working together. In the "unbinding cellar" they found fifteen boys under fifteen years. Twine-factories, ink-factories, feather, pocket-book, and artificial-flower manufacture, and hundreds of other occupations, reveal the same state of things.

It will be remembered that when Mr. Mundella, the English member of Parliament, who has accomplished so much in educational and other reforms in Great Britain, was here, he stated in a public address that the evils of children's overwork seemed as great here as in England. Our investigations confirm this opinion. The evil is already vast in New York, and must be checked. It can only be restrained by legislation. What have other States done in the matter?

MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATION.

The great manufacturing State of New England has long felt the evil from children's overwork, but has only in recent years attempted to check it by strict legislation. In 1866, the Legislature of Massachusetts passed an act restraining "the employment of children of tender years in manufacturing establishments," which was subsequently repealed and replaced by a more complete and stringent law in 1867 (chapter 285). By this act, no child under ten years of age is permitted to be employed in any manufacturing or mechanical establishment in the State. And no child between ten and fifteen years can be so employed, unless he has attended some Day-school for at least three months of the year preceding, or a "halftime school" during the six months. Nor shall the employment continue, if this amount of education is not secured. The school also must be approved by the School Committee of the town where the child resides.

It is further provided, that no child under fifteen shall be so employed more than sixty hours per week. The penalty for the violation of the act is fifty dollars, both to employer and parent. The execution of the law is made the duty of the State Constable.

The report of the Deputy State Comptroller, Gen. Oliver, shows certain defects in the phraseology of the act, and various difficulties in its execution, but no more than might naturally be expected in such legislation. Thus, there is not sufficient power conferred on the executive officer to enter manufacturing establishments, or to secure satisfactory evidence of the law having been violated; and no sufficient certificates or forms of registration of the age and school attendance of factory children are provided for. The act, too, it is claimed, is not sufficiently yielding, and therefore may bear severely in certain cases on the poor.

The reports, however, from this officer, and from the Boston "Bureau of Labor," show how much is already being accomplished in Massachusetts to bring public attention to bear on the subject. Laws often act as favorably by indirect means as by direct. They arouse conscience and awaken consideration, even if they cannot be fully executed. As a class, New England manufacturers are exceedingly intelligent and public-spirited, and when their attention was called to this growing evil by the law, they at once set about efforts to remedy it. Many of them have established "half-time schools," which they require their young _employes_ to attend; and they find their own interests advanced by this, as they get a better class of laborers. Others arrange "double gangs" of young workers, so that one-half may take the place of the other in the mill, while the former are in school. Others have founded "Night-schools." There is no question that the law, with all its defects, has already served to lessen the evil.

RHODE ISLAND LEGISLATION.

The Rhode Island act (chapter 139) does not differ materially from that of Massachusetts, except that twelve years is made the minimum age at which a child can be employed in factories; and children, even during the nine months of factory work every year, are not allowed to be employed more than eleven hours per day. The penalty is made but twenty dollars, which can be recovered before any Justice of the Peace, and one-half is to go to the complainant and the other to the District or Public School.

CONNECTICUT LEGISLATION.

In matters of educational reform Connecticut is always the leading State of the Union. On this subject of children's overwork, and consequent want of education, she has legislated since 1842.

The original act, however, was strengthened and, in part, repealed by another law passed in July, 1869 (chapter 115), which is the most stringent act on this subject in the American code. In all the other legislation the law is made to apply solely to manufacturers and mechanics; in this it includes all employment of children, the State rightly concluding that it is as much against the public weal to have a child grow up ignorant and overworked with a farmer as with a manufacturer. The Connecticut act, too, leaves out the word "knowingly," with regard to the employer's action in working the child at too tender years, or beyond the legal time. It throws on the employer the responsibility of ascertaining whether the children employed have attended school the required time, or whether they are too young for his labor. Nor is it enough that the child should have been a member of a school for three months; his name must appear on the register for sixty days of actual attendance.

The age under which three months' school-time is required is fourteen. The penalty for each offense is made one hundred dollars to the Treasurer of the State. Four different classes of officers are instructed and authorized to co-operate with the State in securing every child under fourteen three months of education, and in protecting him from overwork, namely, School-Visitors, the Board of Education, State Attorneys, and Grand Jurors. The State Board of Education is "authorized to take such action as may be deemed necessary to secure the enforcement of this act, and may appoint an agent for that purpose."

The defects of the law seem to be that it provides for no minimum of age in which a child may be employed in a factory, and does not limit the number of hours of labor per week for children in manufacturing establishments. Neither of these limitations is necessary in regard to farm-labor.

The agent for executing the law in Connecticut, Mr. H. M. Cleaveland, seems to have acted with great wisdom, and to have secured the hearty co-operation of the manufacturers. "Three-fourths of the manufacturers of the State," he says, "of almost everything, from a needle up to a locomotive, were visited, and pledged themselves to a written agreement," that they would employ no children under fourteen years of age, except those with certificates from the local school-officers of actual school attendance for at least three months.

This fact alone reflects the greatest credit on this intelligent class. And we are not surprised that they are quoted as saying, "We do not dare to permit the children within and around our mills to grow up without some education. Better for us to pay the school expenses ourselves than have the children in ignorance."

Many of the Connecticut manufacturers have already, at their own expense, provided means of education for the children they are employing; and large numbers have agreed to a division of the children in their employ into alternate gangs--of whom one is in school while the other is in the factory.

The following act was drawn up by Mr. C. E. Whitehead, counsel and trustee of the Children's Aid Society, and presented to the New York Legislature of 1872. It has not yet passed:--

AN ACT FOR THE PROTECTION OF FACTORY CHILDREN.