Child Labor (ME) Jade Kramer

          Child labor was one of the most emotional progressive issues. Children had always worked on family farms, which was understandable. But some children were working in mines and factories, and this was hazardous to their health. A muckraker John Spargo exposed the harsh working conditions of children in a book called The Bitter Cry of the Children. Children that were the ages of 9 or 10 we working in coal mines, they picked slag out of coal. They worked for 60 cents an hour for ten hours a day. The way he described it was it bent their back permanently and crippled their hands. Articles like these convinced states to make a minimum age for employment and established limits on childhood labor.