LAD #23 Keating-Owen Child Labor Act

A census done in 1900 told the American public that over 2 million children were employed working in dangerous conditions. census report helped spark a national movement to end child labor in the United States. In 1908, the National Child Labor Committee hired Lewis Hine as its staff photographer and sent him across the country to photograph and report on child labor.The first child labor bill, the Keating-Owen bill of 1916, was based on Senator Albert J. Beveridge's proposal from 1906 and used the government's ability to regulate interstate commerce to regulate child labor. The act banned the sale of products from any factory, shop, or cannery that employed children under the age of 14, from any mine that employed children under the age of 16, and from any facility that had children under the age of 16 work at night or for more than 8 hours during the day. Although the Keating-Owen Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson, the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional because it overstepped the purpose of the government's powers to regulate interstate commerce. A second child labor bill was passed in December of 1918. It also took an indirect route to regulate child labor, this time by using the government's power to levy taxes. It, too, was soon found to be unconstitutional in Hammer v. Dagenhart. The Court reasoned that “The power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce does not extend to curbing the power of the states to regulate local trade.”