Public Health and Working Children in Twentieth-Century America: An Historical Overview

Abstract

Throughout this century, concern for the health of America's youth has been a driving force in the long fight to regulate child labor. The prevalence of children in dangerous trades like mining and mill work at the start of the century was a major factor behind the creation of a national child labor reform movement. Not until the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, however, were reformers able to secure universal age, hour and health standards for working youngsters. In the decades following World War 2, child labor dramatically declined in the United States. But new waves of immigration in the 1980s, along with increased participation of high school students in the service sector, have contributed to a resurgence in juvenile employment and focused renewed attention on the health risks faced by minors in the workplace.