The Movement
Reformers often attempted to work with many issues at a time, so the movement to end child labor took time to complete. It wasn't until 1907 that America even had a National Child Labor Committee. Even then, national attention was limited. Events like the "Children's Crusade" or the Child Labor Exhibit for Pacific-Panama Exposition worked to bring the issues of child labor to light. That much attention led to acts such as the Keating-Owen Act, which banned the interstate sale of anything created utilizing child labor. However, that act was considered unconstitutional less than two years after it was enacted.
Sources
American Federation of Teachers. “Child Labor in the United States,” June 16, 2014. https://www.aft.org/community/child-labor-united-states.
Fliter, John A. Child Labor in America: The Epic Legal Struggle to Protect Children. University Press of Kansas, 2018.
“National Archives NextGen Catalog,” n.d. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7741400.
Social Welfare History Project. “National Child Labor Committee,” January 5, 2021. https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/programs/child-welfarechild-labor/national-child-labor-committee/.
The Library of Congress. “[Anti-Saloon Broadside Advocating Passage of Child Labor Laws; Illus. of Small Girl Lying on Monument to ‘Profit’; Factories Belching Smoke in Background],” n.d. https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3b03651/.
The Library of Congress. “Image 42 of Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), January 24, 1915,” January 24, 1915. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83045462/1915-01-24/ed-1/?sp=42&q=Child+Labor&r=-0.201,0.064,0.748,0.311,0.
The Library of Congress. “[Protest against Child Labor in a Labor Parade],” n.d. https://www.loc.gov/item/97519062/.
Wood, Marjorie Elizabeth. Emancipating the Child Laborer: Children, Freedom, and the Moral Boundaries of the Market in the United States, 1853-1938, 2011.
Zelizer, Viviana A. Pricing the Priceless Child: The Changing Social Value of Children. Princeton University Press, 1994.