that indy -- disobedient and that colleges fall. your letter was the first triedtion that another more numerous and powerful have grown discontented. compliment, but you are so saucy. depend upon it. we know better than to repeal are masculine system. and they did not. >> watch the entire program today at 1:30 p.m. eastern. american history tv only on c-span3. >> next on american history television, we learn about the history of child labor in the united states from historian julia bowes. we spoke with her at the american historical association 's annual meeting in washington d.c. this is about 15 minutes. susan: we are talking with julia bowes at the american association conference in washington d.c. in january and she is a phd candidate and a

jefferson scholar at the university of virginia. her area of specialty is child labor. thank you for joining us. julia: thank you for having me. susan: there was an interesting statistic. in the 1900 census 20% of all , children in the united states were in the workforce. how did that happen? julia: that is true. it is an increase from 1888 when it was one in eight. by 1900, it was one in five and the excavation behind that was rapid rate of industrialization which happened, particularly in the northeast in the here -- in the period. there was an influx of immigrants to the united states that provided a cheaper labor force and the children were the cheapest, which fueled industrialization to some extent. susan: were they actually

the sole support of their families? julia: the national child labor committee forms in 1904, and the way they explain it is the main problem with children laboring as they bring down the wages for adults. there is a movement to limit the number of hours that women work and there is a particular problem that people see, if an employer in a mill or factory or mine can employ a child instead of an adult, that drags on the wages for everyone. so, it is the cyclical problem. wages are lower because children are present in the family needs -- and therefore the family needs many of the children to work. susan: what is the history of this as a cultural phenomenon? children probably labored at small businesses or on farms. would you talk about the evolution of child labor? all throughout history children have labored and have lived with their families. but a specially poor children at the beginning of colonial

u.s. history were apprenticed out for their parents. the parents would find a family that had a trade and they would offer that child labor in return for the family raising it and paying for its food and board. as the 19th century progresses, we see the rise of common schooling in the united states and a growing consumption -- conception amongst the middle class the children ought to be in school and have a protected period of innocence. and at the same time, the industrialization pulling children away from the farm and into the factory, into mills and mines. all throughout the northeast in particular and the south as well. susan :they sent children into the mines? julia: yes. susan: it is astonishing. julia: they could get through the tunnels more easily. they would build mills particularly suited for the children's frame. susan: do we have any sense of the mortality rates among these children? julia: it is a difficult to distinguish between what was produced by child labor and poverty.

they are quite closely associated. generally people thought that children working prematurely would stunt their development. that was the main concern. they thought it would rob them of their childhood, they would have economic independence too early. but, particularly working really long hours in those conditions would mean they would not grow to their formal -- to their full size or be involved in industrial accident. susan: so, these children were not being schooled, i presume? or at home or other ways? julia: they sometimes would be schooled for a certain period of the year and it was very minimal, 12 weeks of the year. not necessarily consecutive. often they would allow for children to both be at school and work for most of the year. there is a proposal that the employer should offer schooling, -- that employers should offer schooling, rather than the state

and it was through the effort of the common school performance and it eventually becomes a state function. and across the 19th century, -- thatiod of children children should be in school grows and in the 20th century and it became accepted that children go to high school as well. susan: you talked about this phenomenon in the industrialized north. what was happening in the south? julia: a lot of interesting things about how we measure the child labor problem. reform is measured with industrial child labor. it is really predominantly white child labor. either it is northern immigrant children or they are native born whites. because of the segregation of the south, they would not hire any of the family. the majority of the workers were sharecroppers and the children of sharecroppers were the majority. you get this moment where at

least half the children laboring during 1900 were doing agricultural work and we would assume that the majority of them were black children. the stories they are telling about the dangers of child labor are all about southern white children, particularly ther children of farmers. and they become caught up in these narratives about race and suicide. about how black families in the south are campaigning for their children to be sent to public schools and poor white parents are putting their children are being sent to work in the field. they said, this will lead to race suicide in the united states and become one of the key driving forces to end child labor. susan: when did the reform movement get started and what precipitated it? julia: there were various factors that precipitated it. there was a lot of concern about the effects of industrialization. a lot of concerns about urban blight and the condition of the cities that children were working in and particularly, a concern that young people leaving their family farms and going to live outside of the family home.

may be -- maybe getting mixed up with promiscuous crowds. maybe begging on the street. it became more visible in the cities. it was urbanization and industrialization. that movement starts in massachusetts around the mid-19th century because of the rate of industrialization there and by the turn of the 20th century, that is when the movement forms. -- that is when the national child labor committee forms businessman are worried about the number of white children entering into the cotton business in the south. susan: what were some of the big names of the reform movement? julia: florence kelley. kelly came to the subject very early, partly through her introduction to european socialism when he went abroad in the late 1880's. lewis hines was a lot of work he did with photography. because around the 20th century,

when film became pliable and exploited heecame , used cameras to build into the factories and show the suffering of children. that was transformative in the way that people understood child labor. how much attention the cause got. what happened to his photographs, can you talk about the role of the media? julia: they would use those photographs to kind of humanize what was happening in these mines. the photographs were used to emphasize how small the children were for their age. sometimes they would be very graphic with injuries to their hands, when they were caught in a machine and maimed, or the squalor they lived in, because of their poverty. susan: what does your research

tell you about the families of these children and whether or not they actually supported the reforms. julia: there was definitely a cultural tension around this, particularly with immigrant families who felt it was kind of the pressure for the middle-class social reformers who did not understand the economic situation to conform to what was completely a reasonable expectation of a how much time their children would labor, when they would enter the labor force, be that 12 or 14. the committee eventually once that to be 18, and how much they would spend at school. part of the interesting aspect there is there are not that many social reformers saying, these families need assistance of the state if we take the children out of the labor force. what they are saying, if we take the children out it will push up the wages of the male head of the household and he will be able to provide. and i think there was a sense of resistance and also a lot of poor families with say it is not feasible to expect us to be able

to survive without putting our 12-year-old boy to work or our daughter at 14, or whatever choice they might be making. susan: so, did history play out that when there was less child labor, the wages did rise? julia: it becomes a big issue in the 1920's. that is when you see a huge rise in child labor again. it is generally in periods of economic downturn, but the state of the economy at large had more to do with it rather than if the children themselves were working these jobs. susan: tell me more about the national child labor committee. who did it report to, what impact did it have, was it government-based or private? julia :it was private-based, but a group of social reformers. it was instigated by a group from alabama, which many find surprising because the south had so few child labor laws. he got in contact with kelly and

the national committee and said there should be a national -- this should be a national organization. at the beginning the national child labor committee favored state-based regulation. they thought of you exposed the problem in every state brought in child labor laws that you would get a solution to the problem. eventually the child labor committee in 1910 comes to advocate federal legislation. and they achieved lobbying successfully the couple child -- the two national child labor laws to be introduced because they believe that the longer states could compete, that would push the age that children work. those ended up being struck down by the supreme court as unconstitutional. and in the 1920's, the national child label -- child labor committee lobby for an amendment, right after the adoption of women's suffrage and provision. they are unsuccessful. it is not really into the late 1930's and fdr's second term that the federal government

finds the power to pass some sort of legislation that will affect all children nationally. susan: what ground the supreme court find them unconstitutional? the 14th amendment, is that right? julia: the 10th amendment and the 15th amendment. the supreme court said that congress does not have unlimited power to regulate state's labor. what -- ist was resolved at the time that the constitution itself should be amended to give congress the power, just as it was amended to give them the power to prohibit alcohol nationally. but, there is a very big change in the 1920's. they failed to get enough states to ratify it. susan: were there any big patrons in congress? julia: of the pro-child labor cause? certainly. the first part of the

20th century it was a cause that progresses would tie themselves to to launch their careers. it eventually -- eventually woodrow wilson, who had opposed congress having the power to regulate child labor. he said it was blatantly unconstitutional. it was clearly a right of the state and the day before he -- he signs the child labor law the day before he seeks reelection for the presidency and he rides on that to his second term in power. by the midpoint of the second decade of the 20th century, there is a strong political consensus from republicans, progressives and democrats that congress should have this power. it becomes the cause that is seen as being above politics, and a good way to show your moral concern for children. susan: did the woman's right to vote change the political aspect of this question? julia: in a sense, there is a big backlash to the passage of women's suffrage and a backlash to prohibition. it resulted in the repeal of

prohibition. those factors, as well as the beginning of the red scare, which linked the cause of child labor with socialism and there are certainly a number of known socialists involved with the national child labor committee. those were involved in the changing face of the child labor cause and the popularity. susan: child labor in the united states shifted -- systematically --? when -- putin julia:i want to say never. susan: why is that? julia: i think the way we understand child labor changes. one of the exceptions that was always granted in child labor laws was acting laws, so children could appear on broadway and in the state. our ideas of what would be acceptable child labor changed. in the same way as well in the 1920's, the newspaper industry is against the child labor amendment because they want to rely on newspaper boys and i think in the late 20th century we still see newspaper boys as the new form of child labor, as -- as an ok form of child labor, as long as it is not interfering with their schooling.

but what really weeds out child labor is globalization. it moves offshore and the united states and that consuming products that is produced by child labor overseas. it again, is one of the indications that the rates of child labor are tied to economic factors than the executive legislation. susan: how did you get interested in this? julia: i came to graduate school working on eleanor roosevelt. i was interested in why she focused so heavily on children and that led me back to the 19 century of how they use children to expand what the state did and what the state functions were. susan: ultimately, what is the impact today? is there any correlation with how we live entry children in relation to what you studied? julia: absolutely. child labor -- absolutely. there is a transformation about how we think childhood should be and child labor laws are a huge

part of this, as are the growing conception that children in 18 years of schooling. the national child labor causes the divine right to do nothing. and the ability of children today to have this extended period of innocence. a lot of the moral panics we see around child of duction or -- abduction or there are effects of social media on children and their deeply rooted in these cultural ideas that children deserve this protective passage of innocence that society at large has a responsibility to uphold. >> thank you for telling us more about it. >> thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> this weekend on real america. --reel america. the 1988 u.s. moscow summit between ronald reagan and mikael gorbachev. >> the way i see it is a and sometimesy

trying. it is a good way and we believe the best way. once again, mr. neral secretary i want to extend to you and all of those who labored hard for this moment my warmest personal thanks. america on sunday at four clock p.m.. today on the civil war, clemson university history professor talks about the origins of the 14th amendment and why it was necessary to gratify it after the south's defeat and the abolition of slavery. here is a preview. >> freedom is a powerful engine. african americans begin defining their lives with new freedom, getting married, searching for members of their family. defert slavery did not

any positive right. it only liberated them from the ownership of a master and eliminated the motive for self in a rented -- interested but never less -- benevolence. what ever meaning the 13th thedment may have had, white south's reaction to slavery change the dynamic. they visibly enacted thinly disguised versions of slavery known as a black codes which righthite employers the to administer corporate chastisement, meaning whipping. most states became nearly impossible for african-americans to rent land. others sought effective legal address. blacks were not allowed to firearms, tos, preach the gospel without license from white authorities. were wrappedons

with slave code caught -- clauses. in new orleans the code it cleared that free people of color never all -- ought to strike white people or presume to think themselves equal. they can find blacks -- they can blacks to theed land. white people who did not -- who thought differently were kept in ite with crotty -- with becoming a crime to associate with black people on terms of he quietly -- of equality. it -- this propelled the nation towards equality. can watch the entire program at 6:00 p.m. eastern. this is american history tv. >> next on the presidency,

veterans of richard nixon's white house gather to talk about 1969, when he faced the opposition and control of both the house and senate. he used trips aboard the presidential yacht to lobby members in pursuit of his goals. the national archives and richard nixon foundation cohosted this 90 minute event. david: i am david ferriero, archivist of the united states, and it is a pleasure to welcome you this morning. a special welcome to our c-span audience, and to the head of the nixon library foundation and the director of the nixon library. we are very proud to have one of our nixon legacy forums here. we havbe