Child Labor in New York During the 1890s and 1900s
The ending of the Civil War and the start of the Gilded Age began an industrial boom due to new technological inventions, which resulted in newfound call for laborers. This call was answered by children all over the United States, causing a massive rise in child labor. At the same time, urbanization and immigration led to a population increase, which had the largest impact on New York City. New York was the largest city in America, at a population of just under two million in 1890 which would grow to three and a half million in 1900.1 With its massive population, child labor was clearly seen throughout New York City in 1890. While the specific number of all child laborers in New York City during this period is unknown due to the way the U.S. Census was taken, the 1890 Census records being lost to a fire, and an absence certain data on certain jobs, we know at least around 24,000 children were employed in factories around the time of 1893 in New York making up a larger number of perhaps 200,000 in New York alone.2 Throughout the entire country between 1890 and 1910, at least eighteen percent of children ages ten to fifteen were employed. Working upwards of twelve hours and day, some children made as little as three dollars a week.3
Children took up many types of jobs for multiple reasons. Some worked to help their families, while some who had no family worked to support themselves. As for the work they did, “[t]hey worked making artificial flowers, driving teams, laying bricks, packing fish, tanning leather, and butchering cattle. Some were machinists, buttonmakers, confectioners, painters, plumbers, or glassworkers. Others worked in the fields and canning factories, or in the cotton, hosiery, silk, woolen, hemp, and jute mills. There were livery stable keepers, bartenders, seamstresses, janitors, sailors, and even auctioneers under sixteen.”4 Many children who were homeless lived on the streets, sleeping in alleyways and on docks to try and steer clear of policemen. On cold nights finding a grate to sleep on was often a good way to keep warm.
Some jobs had available housing if you were willing to pay. Many newsboys stayed in lodging houses, which had facilities that would clean, feed, teach, and house them for a few cents a night. The mandatory schooling also gave a promising future to the children that lived there, something many children living on the streets did not have.5
1Samuel Eliot Morison, Henry Steele Commager, and William E. Leuchtenberg, A Concise History of the American Republic. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977): 500.
2Campbell, Helen, Darkness and Daylight; or Lights and Shadows of New York Life. A.D. Worthington & Co., 1893: 139.
3Schuman, Michael. “History of Child Labor in the United States—Part 1: Little Children Working.” Monthly Labor Review, 2017: 4.
4Felt, Jeremy P. Hostages of Fortune ; Child Labor Reform in New York State. Syracuse University Press, 1965: 17-18.
5Campbell, Helen, Darkness and Daylight; or Lights and Shadows of New York Life. A.D. Worthington & Co., 1893: 111-138.