U.S. Census Bureau Daily Feature for April 16: Child Labor

WASHINGTON, April 16, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:

CHILD LABOR

Profile America — Sunday, April 16th. Children have worked throughout history, especially on family farms and in trades. But their employment in industrialized settings raised many popular objections. On this date in 1836, Massachusetts became the first state to prohibit children under age 15 from working in factories. Massachusetts acted again six years later, limiting children's work to 10 hours per day. But it wasn't until the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 that long, dangerous child labor was ended nationally. The restrictions on child labor scarcely dent the national labor force. In May of last year, there were 158.5 million working Americans age 16 and older. The largest category, at 4.6 million, was in retail sales. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at www.census.gov.

Sources:
Kane's Famous First Facts, 4573
Federal oversight/accessed 1/29/2017: www.dol.gov/dol/topic/youthlabor/ 
History/accessed 1/29/2017: www.continuetolearn.uiowa.edu/laborctr/child_labor/about/us_history.html 
Workforce: www.census.gov/newsroom/facts-for-features/2015/cb15-ff14.html

Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotion of the U.S. Census Bureau. Statistics and accounts drawn from cited non-Census sources are employed for illustrative or narrative purposes, and are not attested to by the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Audio" in the "Library" pull-down menu). 

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SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau