Make a follow-up of a student’s weekly discussion and respond with your opinion regarding to her post
Kayla Stephens
The minority groups I have chosen are child workers and African americans.
In the early 1900’s, many children were forced to work in factories to help their family stay afloat. Factory owners loved child workers because they could pay them less. The children were also easier to handle, and were less likely to revolt against the heart labor conditions. Child labor was not a new idea at this time, but in the early 20th century a record number of children were working in factories, which caused many groups to rise up and introduced reforms for the idea. One of these groups was the National Child Labor committee of 1904. Their strategy was anti-sweatshop campaigns and efforts to provide free education to all children. Their efforts created the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1939, which set rules against child labor(Child Labor in U.S. History | the University of Iowa Labor Center, n.d.). Although this was a slow process, progressivists were able to provide reform and deliver child workers from the factories.
While African Americans were now free people, they were still treated just as badly by many people in the south. Segregation was very present, and they were treated like animals in most cases, having to sit where told and walk on a certain side of the street. The civil rights movement was just kicking off, and the progressive era was in full swing. Many white people expressed that African Americans should be working to earn their keep in the south to aid in its economic growth. They felt that if the African Americans stayed busy enough, they would not be clouded by the civil rights marches and the reform set forth for them. Booker T. Washington stated that “Their success and hard work would eventually convince southern White people to grant these rights” (Openstax, 2019). Many whites agreed with Washington, because it placed the burden of African American rights on the African Americans and not them. Most of the African American population disagreed with this approach because they felt it wasn’t a fast enough approach. Washington’s approach was not a successful one, as it brought no reform for the African Americans.
References
Child Labor in U.S. History | The University of Iowa Labor Center. (n.d.). Retrieved September 26, 2022, from https://laborcenter.uiowa.edu/special-projects/child-labor-public-education-project/about-child-labor/child-labor-us-history
OpenStax. (2019). U.S. history. OpenStax CNX. Retrieved from https://cnx.org/contents/[email protected]:[email protected]/Introduction (Links to an external site.)
Reply Reply to Comment