LAD #23- Keating-Owen Act

In the 1900 census, it was reported that nearly 2 million children were working in factories. This census helped to spark a new effort to end child labor, and was even more greatly heightened when the National Child Labor Committee hired Lewis Hines as a photographer in 1908. He photographed the horrendous conditions and its detrimental effects on children. Karl Marx and Charles Dickens were instrumental in bringing about worldwide attention to the problems of child labor. At first, in 1906, the government tried to use the government’s ability to regulate interstate commerce to curb the use of child labor, which banned the sale of products from anywhere that used child labor. This was signed by President Woodrow Wilson, but was later stated to be unconstitutional, saying that it overstepped the powers of the government. The Supreme Court’s rulings made little room for change in child labor laws, but later a constitutional amendment was added to give Congress the power to regulate child labor.