Child labor regulation seems emblematic of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, and yet federal legislation to protect children only became settled law many decades later. Professor John Fliter joins the show to discuss the history of child labor laws and how it has shaped the contemporary political debates.

Essential Reading:

John A. Fliter, Child Labor in America: The Epic Legal Struggle to Protect Children (2018).

Recommended Reading:

Betsy Wood, Upon the Altar of Work: Child Labor and the Rise of a New American Sectionalism (2020).

Hugh D. Hindman, Child Labor: An American History (2002).

Vincent DiGirolamo, Crying the News: A History of America's Newsboys (2019).

Paul Chrystal, Factory Girls: The Working Lives of Women and Children (2022).

James D. Schmit, Industrial Violence and the Legal Origins of Child Labor (2010).

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