Education: Document Showcase:

Industrialization & Child Labor in New York

Document 2a
Supreme Court brief outlining findings of the Factory Investigating Commission

Excerpt 1

Excerpt 2

Excerpt 3

1. In what year was this document written?
2. Whose investigation and findings does this document describe?  
3. Name two ways in which you think child labor might have been harmful to children.
4. The Commission’s recommendation #1 states, “(It was felt, however, that no system of inspection to which the State could resort, would effectually prevent such employment.)”  Why do you think the Commission thought there was no way for the State to prevent the employment of children in tenement houses?

Document 2b
Excerpt of Chapter 529 of the Laws of 1913, prohibiting the employment of children less than fourteen years of age in manufacturing work in tenement houses.

1. Why do you think the 1913 law prohibited children under the age of 14 from working in tenement houses, but allowed them to work on their families’ farms?
2. Why do you think the 1909 law that addresses the employment of minors was called “An act relating to education?”  How are child labor and education related?

Document 1 | Document 3

This DBQ is available as a printable worksheet in pdf format.