Episode 28 - Childhood in America

Speaker 0 00:00:02 So, uh, back to normal topics kind of a little bit. Speaker 1 00:00:07 Yeah. We've had this one in the, in the books for awhile of wanting to do this episode, talking about childhood in America. And, um, we had to kind of put it off for several weeks because week to week, it seems like the world continues to spiral out of control. But this week, even though there was a huge historical event yesterday as the sitting president was impeached twice. Speaker 0 00:00:33 Yeah. Trump is the only president in us history to be charged, uh, be impeached twice peach twice. So yeah, Speaker 1 00:00:41 We're going to just veer away from that kind of stuff though, and get to like more, I guess, normal ish topic, but I'm excited about this one because there's a lot to say Speaker 0 00:00:52 There is my, when I was researching for today, I w I ended up in a very odd place, Speaker 1 00:00:59 Which I had to do end up in. Speaker 0 00:01:03 I have an argument I want to make about child labor organized labor and the 20th century. Speaker 1 00:01:13 Okay. I'm excited because I got bogged down in the early years, which is not uncommon for me when I'm set off to research something, I end up like way, way far back, but there, so I think we're going to have it covered, but I'm really excited because there are a lot of arguments and discussions to be had about what childhood even means and how that changes over time. Right. I mean, right now let's let me ask you a question. Well, let's see, we should do our intro music. Do the intro music, Speaker 0 00:01:44 Welcome to an incomplete history. I'm Hillary and I'm Jeff. And we're your hosts for this weekly history? Speaker 2 00:01:50 <inaudible> Speaker 0 00:02:12 So, so kind of before we get into, um, how's the weather in Mississippi Speaker 1 00:02:19 Sunny and, um, little chili, like in the fifties, it's a nice day out. We had a really exciting weather event this week. I'm sad. We didn't record on this day. There was no actual real life, snow, not a flurry. Um, we probably got, I don't know about an inch or so we were able to make a full snowman and the kids played outside all day and it was really cool. Speaker 0 00:02:42 Did you sing the song about frosty? No. About, well, did you sing that song? Speaker 1 00:02:49 Yeah. And they were, they named the snowman frosty and I was like, Oh, hell original. But Speaker 0 00:02:59 Did, um, no, the other song, do you want to build a snowman? I love how much you love. I know how much you'd love frozen. Speaker 1 00:03:06 I've eradicated frozen from the five points, but it is, yeah, it's been canceled because, and now the girls are just like, yeah, that's a baby show. It is frozen. Speaker 0 00:03:23 Uh, it's 80 degrees here today. Speaker 1 00:03:26 That's what I heard that is very warm for January, but Speaker 0 00:03:30 15, 10 degrees warmer than it should be. I mean, we should be having nice weather, but this is a little too nice. It's not really, I mean, 80 degrees feels fine. Um, but yeah, Speaker 1 00:03:44 January, right? I mean, that's Speaker 0 00:03:47 Like they expect, um, tomorrow maybe we might set some record highs. Um, yep. Welcome to the world of global climate change. Speaker 1 00:03:58 An article today that came across that said that we really have increased in temperature, um, significantly. I mean, cause there was all these new, you know, studies come out at the beginning of the year and um, it said that, you know, we've got a real situation going right now. So I mean, we know that. Speaker 0 00:04:17 So, uh, so we're back to kind of, I don't know, less controversial topics unless you're paying attention, Speaker 1 00:04:25 We can make this controversial. We can make it Speaker 0 00:04:27 Controversial. And the whole thing is, is I actually, there's a moment of controversy in the 19th and 20th century that just floors me that it was controversial. Like, I'm just like, how was this controversial? But we're going to be talking about childhood in America today. Speaker 1 00:04:46 I wanted to start by asking you a question and I almost, I got ahead of myself in the first minute, but we're excited to talk about this. I'm so excited. I have like notes on notes. Um, how old is the child today? Like how do you, how old do you think you are until you're an adult right now in 2021. And I'm not talking legally, I'm asking you just in general, when do you think you stop being a child in this country? Now Speaker 0 00:05:12 When you're talking to someone who teaches freshmen, I know. Speaker 1 00:05:16 I know. So when do you think Speaker 0 00:05:19 Here's the thing? Sometimes I think by freshmen who were mostly 18 and 19 years old, sometimes I think they're definitely adults sometimes. I think they're still children. Um, I can understand where kind of legal adulthood happens somewhere between 17 and 21. I understand the argument for that because I think actual adulthood it's happened somewhere in there as well. Um, and I think it's different for different kids too. I think some kids by the time they're 60 or 17 interacting much more mature than many adults. That's true. And it depends on their circumstances Speaker 1 00:05:58 Oftentimes, which we know goes all the way back. Speaker 0 00:06:04 Right. I think it's an inverse thing. Right? I think the lower a child's socioeconomic level, the more likely they are to be mature at an earlier age. Speaker 1 00:06:14 Oh, absolutely. Because they're forced to be, um, earners for their families and they Speaker 0 00:06:19 Don't have the luxury of a prolonged childhood. They Speaker 1 00:06:21 Don't have the luxury that's right. Because childhood is luxury. Um, and our, I mean, it's a luxury that is new. We've not had this whole idea of like what it means to be a child until relatively recently. Speaker 0 00:06:38 So I mean, let's so childhood in America let's go way, way back to kind of, uh, Puritan new England. Speaker 1 00:06:47 Okay. So can I go here? Speaker 0 00:06:52 Can we talk about the creepy paintings of children from then? Speaker 1 00:06:55 Yeah, well oftentimes they would be painted as like adults, but in teeny little bodies, like adult faces on little teeny, baby bodies is very weird art during the, you know, I would, I'm thinking like the 17th century, cause I'm thinking of like the colonial period. It's very weird. And, but you know, it's not though when you think about the way that children are treated, they're not, they are kind of treated from the time. They're little as little adults and they're expected to act like little adults. Like they're just considered like stunted, you know, like, Oh, they'll get there, but we're going to just treat them that way anyway, as if they're adults. And so when I started reading about childhood in the colonial era, I learned, well, I knew this a little bit, but I learned it more fully is that children were largely responsible for settlement in the American colonies, that many of the people who were sent as indentured servants, whether voluntarily or not were under the age of 19 and that children have worked all along, um, you know, this entire time. Speaker 1 00:08:11 And so one of the things that struck me as troubling was that it was an intentional plan. So like they wanted children to come here and the, the people settling would, right? So like the Virginia governor would write to other governors in, um, London. And I have this primary source document where he's talking about like, can you send a hundred more kids to us? The hundred that you sent last year were great. Some of them died on the way over, but you know, it'd be great if you could send us some more kids. And it became so clear to me that like most of these children were indentured against their will. You know, a lot of times we think of indentured servitude or apprenticeship, it's like, Oh, they're teaching something and the kids get to pick their trade sometimes. But sometimes they were actually going and picking kids up off the street who were orphaned or destitute or coming from poor families, putting them on ships and sending them across the ocean to work without any consent. Speaker 0 00:09:13 Well, I mean, in England at the time you have like an urban crisis with population and children as well. And this is where you get kind of famous illustrations of like how <inaudible> the lower classes are in England. And you see kind of these drunken women with like babies falling out of their arms and busting their heads open and stuff that there's this idea that the, the lower class in England cannot take care of itself, nor can they take care of their children. And there's nowhere for these children to go. There's nothing for them to do. So we might as well send them somewhere where we can do something, right. Speaker 1 00:09:49 I thought they were solving a social problem, which I guess in a way, it, from our 21st century, I seems very cruel. They're like, well, we're going to give them the opportunity to go to this new place to work and then to be given the land and some clothing, and then they can start their own lives. Because the, yeah, there's this idea that the lower class can not take care of their children. And so they're going to be given a different life and a different opportunity, but oftentimes it would happen as the kids were kidnapped. So they called the kidnappers spirit orders and they would say, Oh, the child was spirited away, which sounds like whimsical, but it means they were kidnapped. Um, and so these kidnappers or spirit enters would get healthy profits for each suitable child that they could find wandering the streets. Speaker 1 00:10:40 And it was accustomed that people would just kind of wander the streets of more destitute areas throughout London and other areas. And just go around collecting children. You come here, you come here, you come here. And, and people's kids were disappearing off the streets. Um, one man was looking for his 11 year old son. This was in 16, in the 1660s. And he obtained a warrant to, to search a ship that was bound for the American colonies. And he was looking for his 11 year old son and he claimed, you know, my son had been kidnapped or spirited away. The search ended up uncovering 19 different servants. Um, 11 whom had been taken in voluntarily or spirited kidnapped off the street against their will. And so this trade of children was happening at the same time as the African slave trade and in, in somewhat similar ways where they're being kidnapped, but then they were doing different things right there. Speaker 1 00:11:42 So they were indentured and apprentice. And that there was an idea of at a certain point, they can become free, but they were still being kidnapped with no consent. This created, you know, an outrage. I mean, a lot of people thought that this wasn't right. Um, Charles, the second in 1664, he established a central registry, which ended up recording the contracts of all servants, leaving the colonies. So that way it started to be written down who is leaving? Why are they leaving? Where are they going? So, so they could start keeping some records of it because there was some outrage over the kids being taken, but pretty common practice in the 17th century. Speaker 0 00:12:26 So why, I mean, here's the thing, and this is kind of what historians we do. We, you know, we, you uncover documents like that. And you know, you sit back and you start to try to figure out why, why were children's such an attractive group and an in demand group to bring over. And I think it's very similar to what we're going to talk about later with the 19th and early 20th century with child labor is easy to control. They're small, they're physically not, you know, they're, you, you don't have to worry as much about them physically overwhelming you Speaker 1 00:13:00 They're nimble, Speaker 0 00:13:02 They're nimble. They have small hands, um, which becomes really important in the 19th century, right? During the industrial era. And there are things that they are that it's been decided they can do that. It's maybe a little bit harder for adults to do. Um, but I think the most important thing is this idea that they are very pliable, malleable. Speaker 1 00:13:26 There's nothing else for them to do. It seems right. So if they're being taken from these urban environments and their parents, can't feed them and they're not working and they're not working alongside their parents or something, they're just kind of wandering around and this, you know, ends up being, uh, also a story about education and how important compulsory education becomes in, you know, into more like the 19th century where kids start just going to school and learning from young ages. That's not the case right now. Um, you know, people from really upper classes of course, are educating their children, teaching them to read arithmetic or they're being sent away. But by and large, the majority of the population is not being formally educated. So you have the kids that are just wandering around with kind of nothing to do. So they say, well, we'll give you something to do Speaker 0 00:14:15 Well. And in a Puritan context, there's, uh, there's, uh, another problem with shelter, um, and Puritan communities in new England is, and I will never forget this, a professor, you and I both had, um, when we were completing our doctoral work, used to talk about this, right? The children were high source of anxiety among kind of staunch Puritans in new England because They had assembled these communities of saints, right? The communities they assembled kind of this community of God. And then they have these children in it. And you don't know what a char a child certainly seems to be a susceptible to Satan's whims, Speaker 1 00:15:00 Right. Because kids, they see them as troublemakers, you're naughty or yeah, more, exactly more susceptible, but they also think that children are more connected to like a spiritual world or that they're, they're more susceptible to listening maybe to like the devil tempting them or things like that. And crisis Speaker 0 00:15:20 Was very similar to women, right? Speaker 1 00:15:23 When, when left to our own devices, what to do, Speaker 0 00:15:28 Right. But the Puritans viewed women as, um, what was the word that spongy that they would soak up, whatever was around them. Um, and that could be good things, but it could also be bad things like Satan's influence, Speaker 1 00:15:44 Right? Because women are treated much like children. Uh, but th but the idea is that we're malleable just like children, because we can't come up with our own ideas or make our own decisions. And so, unless we are put to work with very specific tasks and kept busy all day, we may wander off and commune with the devil Speaker 0 00:16:06 And this, I mean, children figure prominently in 1692, the Salem witch trials. Speaker 1 00:16:12 Well, isn't that old saying too? Idle hands are the devil's handiwork. Right? That's the whole idea. Speaker 0 00:16:18 The tool level. Yeah. I mean, it's, and it, you know, you want to learn more about the Salem witch trials, see our Halloween episode, but I, but I think that is something right there. The fact that children occupy central position in what happens in Salem in 1692 is a real, it reveals the anxiety about these children. And I think combining that with kind of James town demand for more children is a very interesting thing, because I think it shows that we are not to a place where children are kind of the center of family life. Um, you know, we talked a little about this in our Christmas episode. They are not at all. In fact, in many ways they're viewed as very disrupting, Speaker 1 00:17:03 Well, they're a necessary evil at this point, right? There's no, you know, good ways to control their being born, right? Like there's no good birth control methods, necessarily people do want to have children. Um, you're not going to stop people from having sex. And they know that at some point the children are going to be very helpful. And so it's kind of like seen as a necessary evil, especially during infancy because children really are totally useless during infancy, but they start putting kids to work at really young ages. Basically, whenever a kid could carry something, they were put to work and, you know, toddlers can carry stuff. They would have kids as young as three carrying firewood. Um, but so I think they were a necessary evil for people in the colonial era. Speaker 0 00:17:54 Right? Well, in particular, I think we, you start to have kind of agriculture really take a takeoff in the colonies. And later the early United States, anybody who's ever lived on or near a farm or been around farms knows that there's an incredible amount of physical labor that has to be performed. And some of it, you don't need a great amount of strength to do. You just need to do it. So children are an essential component to this, and this is why you see kind of rural farm families. The average number of children in the family goes way up because that's labor. Right. Speaker 1 00:18:29 So that's certainly true. And I think that that's still true today. Really, a lot of people who are more rural tend to have a few more kids than people who are not. And I'm seeing that too, from experience like watching some of the communities around here, there are so kids who work on farms. Speaker 0 00:18:47 Oh yeah. I mean, it's Speaker 1 00:18:48 Not that they're not going to school, although I can't say for certain, I think a lot of them are homeschooled, but there's a lot of kids who work on farms around here. Speaker 0 00:18:57 Yeah. I mean, when I was in high school, there were farms that, that kids, some kids would do chores around the farm before they, they get up at like 4:00 AM in the morning to do all their stuff on the farm before they went to school. Speaker 1 00:19:12 That's, what's crazy. Right. When school does come into the mix, that's just an added bit of labor for the kids, because it's not like their chores go away. They just have to get up earlier to do them. And we can talk about that later because it's controversial. Speaker 0 00:19:27 But I think it's also this idea that you don't want a child to have too much free time on their hands. They'd be asleep. I, who knows, but I think it's, I think it's, it's maybe why parents pack their children's schedules today too. Right. Speaker 1 00:19:44 That's true. That's true. It's with different stuff. And then it, the way that we value children today and the ways that we try to make their lives so perfect and everything, it, a lot of it though does go back to, they're never idle. They're always doing something they're signed up, you know, they go to school and then they have afterschool extracurricular. They have music lessons, you know, sporting events, um, theater, whatever it is, you just pack their schedule. And then they're so exhausted by the end of the day that they sleep. And there's something probably connected there. Right. Of like never allowing the idle hands. Speaker 0 00:20:26 I think. So I think so. So I mean, we're, we've gotten beyond the early colonial period. Let's get to kind of the revolutionary period. Um, this is not the last time I'm going to mention Walt Disney. I think Walt Disney is going to come up three times today. Um, but Walt Disney has great, um, move it TV movie, I guess. Cause I don't think it was, it may have been released theatrically after it premiered on the, um, wonderful world of Disney, uh, called the Liberty story. And it features the story of Johnny Tremaine. Who's this Boston who's apprenticed to a silver Smith. Um, it's pretty good. Actually. It's honestly, as an historian, I don't sit there and squirm completely. Um, it, it actually does a pretty good job of representing some things. Um, but you know, he's, uh, he's an apprentice and a silver to a silver Smith and he ends up getting involved in the revolution. Speaker 0 00:21:36 Um, but the thing is the task that he's given are very much tasks that would have been given children that are very similar to the other tasks children's start to do at the very early, uh, period of the American Republic or the end of the revolution, which include things they're called street jobs, right? Our street trades, I, he gets the more formal term for them, um, which by the 19th century becomes things like newspapers, delivering newspapers. The end of the 19th century becomes delivering telegrams, shining boots, shining shoes, running errands, whatever duties are demanded, but this is kind of Johnny. This is what he does during the revolution is he kind of does just whatever is demanded of him. Um, during the war, there's a lot of jobs and these jobs are considered necessary, but beneath the adult men, right. Speaker 1 00:22:32 And kids are easy to kind of just slide into those positions. There's no, there's nothing. There's nothing stopping them from being like street vendors or drummer boys or passing out newspapers or what have you. I mean, it really, it makes sense really, if you have all these things to do, who's going to do it well, a kid could give them a sense of purpose, Speaker 0 00:22:53 Right. But I think the opposite, the flip side of that, that I think is very interesting is Johnny is an apprentice. And I think this apprenticeship thing, um, becomes the store for quite a while because you've got these children basically that are apprenticed at a very early age. And he gets an apprentice because he's an orphan. Um, but many of them get apprenticed at an early age and they basically stay in that position, learning theoretically, learning a trade for decades. And in fact, we get kind of at the end of the 18th, beginning of the 19th century, we get a real revolt against that apprentice ship system. Speaker 1 00:23:35 It just ends up being unpaid labor. Because if you think about like the purpose of an apprenticeship, it makes really good sense, right. If you're going to need to learn a skill and you're going to have to go out into the world and earn some point, you might as well start learning it when you're young, if there's no compulsory education. Right. It makes good sense. But then they start taking advantage of it. Exactly. Well, we're just kids around Speaker 0 00:24:00 26 year old men who are still apprentice. Right. Right. Um, but apprenticeship reminds me of when we were teaching assistants, um, this is, um, Speaker 1 00:24:16 We were learning Jeffrey. Speaker 0 00:24:19 Did you get any real instruction? Speaker 1 00:24:23 No. None whatsoever. Exactly. Speaker 0 00:24:25 So it's complete BS, right? I mean, it's, we could have a whole series about how higher education is so broken. Um, but I mean, it's, you know, what's interesting is it is not strictly an American phenomenon that childhood starts to Devita developed in the 19th century. Well, it's happening in multiple places. Speaker 1 00:24:51 What we've been talking about though in several episodes about the cult of domesticity, where the Homespace starts to be cultivated by women, um, because men are off working away from the home, not in the farms and women start to cultivate this domestic space and children are at the heart of it. Speaker 0 00:25:13 Would you say children are hurt? Or the wife is at the heart? Speaker 1 00:25:16 Well, the wife's at the heart, but children are very much a part of that domestic space. Okay. So here's what I would say. I, I skipped apart there. It used to be that children were completely under control of the father completely for work assignments. They belonged to the father. They were like accessories to him, much like the wife was, but that begins to shift into the 19th century where women start to be more in charge of the children. And that's kind of weird to think about that. There was ever a time where that wasn't the case because of course women carry the children in birth, the children and feed the children. You would think they would always be under the, under the supervision or guidance of the mother. But that's not the case, not until into the 19th century. Do women start to take charge of the children in the house? Speaker 0 00:26:09 Well, in an ideal model, right? I mean, here's the thing is I think, right. I think if you went to some kind of lower socioeconomic situations, you might find something very different. Um, but what I find is interesting is women are able to kind of start to assume control over our children, but to control as a very passive aggressive control. The one that we're all suasion. So moral suasion becomes the, the ideal way for a mother to your children becomes through moral suasion. So if Johnny is out, you know, drinking and gambling and doing terrible things that a boys shouldn't be doing, the mother doesn't directly confront Johnny what she does. And this just cracks me up. What she does is she arranges for Johnny to spy her on like kneeling at her bed, praying fervently to God, to correct Johnny's ways. And like tears streaming down her face because he's broken her heart and all these things, it becomes this really messed up passive aggressive way to control children. Speaker 1 00:27:20 You just described my mother-in-law Speaker 0 00:27:23 I think, but I think this becomes the model for a long time, that it's viewed as unseemly for a woman to directly confront a child about bad behavior. Whereas the father comes home and immediately does it. And this is why I think even into the 1950s, you see an ideal family model where it's always like, wait till your father gets home. Because I think it's a hangover from that kind of at the end of the day, the, the husband slash father calls all the shots. But I, but I think it's very this moral suasion and look it up. There are some great things that have been written about moral suasion. It's so weird. Um, Speaker 1 00:28:08 Because it's appealing to like, uh, it's appealing to something higher than just like, cause women, oftentimes this is what I would say is that women oftentimes are not listened to when they directly say something. And so women have for centuries had to find work arounds to get their voice heard. And so that's just one way, you know, if, if, so say a mother went to the sun and was like, you're doing blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He would say, you're nagging me and not listen. Right? So like, this is a work around where the mother's like, I'll talk to Jesus about how upset I am over the son's behavior. And then attempt to like alter the behavior by appealing to their morals. I don't, I don't know if it's right, but to me it seems very indicative of somebody trying to seek power or persuasion. Who's coming from a very, very limited role with limited abilities to actually do that. Does that make sense? Speaker 0 00:29:07 Oh yeah. I definitely think it does. I mean it's and I think the cult of domesticity, we are talking about Republican motherhood alongside of it, that, that the ideal father at this point is, has structured a Republican miniature in a household, but then has out activities outside the household to kind of conduct. But the Republican mother and we're talking little are Republican here Republic, right? The Republican mother is at home instilling Republican values in her children, Speaker 1 00:29:44 Republican values, meaning of citizenship being a good citizen, being a good person. Right. And so this woman's left to tend to that portion of the house. Yeah. Virtue. And she's been kind of deputized by the husband, but not fully there. They don't carry equal power. They never do. Right, right. Speaker 0 00:30:06 That's I think that's a great word deputize because it, you know, even when you're deputized, you don't have the full power of the party that deputized you. And I think that's a really good way to view it is that the husband deems her capable of dealing with things to a point. But at the end of the day, he has the final call because I think this is still a period where we have coverage her for women, right. Where women still can't do things like initiate divorces in many places, they can't own property outright themselves. They definitely can't vote. I mean, there's all these kinds of restrictions on their activity. Speaker 1 00:30:47 Well, and the end of the day, in case of the divorce or separation, which isn't, which is not very common, the children will still go to the father at this point. No, the wife has kind of taken over some of the domestic duties in the raising of the children. By this time, at the end of the day, she still does not have legal rights to her own children. The father does. Speaker 0 00:31:10 And that persisted until the post-war period. Speaker 1 00:31:14 Yeah. And it's funny because now I think people automatically say, Oh, the mother gets all of the rights to the kids. And not really not really. I think courts tend to favor mothers in certain cases. And I know that everybody has an anecdotal piece of evidence to say that the mothers favored, but oftentimes now I think it's, it's more of a 50 50 thing, but historically speaking, it's really never been that way. It's always just been the father. So the pendulum may be swinging, but historically that's never been in favor of the mother. This is a more recent development in the 21st century, 20th and 21st. Right. Right. Speaker 0 00:31:53 Right. So the 19th century is the moment where things start to really change. I would argue we're childhood really, as we understand it, today starts to be invented. Speaker 1 00:32:07 Yes. And it's invented by spaced on social class. Speaker 0 00:32:11 It is, it is the clearest way to, to say I am middle. Speaker 1 00:32:15 Yeah. My children don't have to work. We can provide a childhood for them. And all of you, poor poppers who make their children work are depriving them of a childhood and are obviously too poor to get by bullets. Speaker 0 00:32:32 Right. And, and the first step is my wife does not have to work because we don't need that income and children don't need to work. If I encounter somebody where either of those things are happening, where the wife or children are working. I know I am of a superior moral class to them, Speaker 1 00:32:51 A period of moral class, but also just in general, you know, I am a higher social class than that person because I make more money than that person. And this is all by the way, just like capitalism at its finest. Right. It's the, yeah. I'll use off of that. It's our country. Yeah. Speaker 0 00:33:10 Because here's the thing. So you've got this middle-class father whose wife is not working, his children, aren't working and he may be investing some money and he's investing in money in factories that at the very same moment are employing children to work in the factory Speaker 1 00:33:28 Preying on lower families and women. Yeah, absolutely. Cause they, but that's part of the study. Speaker 0 00:33:37 Uh huh. Speaker 1 00:33:38 Thinking too about like where regionally, where's this explosion of factory development Speaker 0 00:33:45 To new England. Right. Speaker 1 00:33:47 And in the early 19th century, what happens in new England, right along the side, the time when these, you Speaker 0 00:33:54 Know, factories Speaker 1 00:33:57 Kind of exploded it's they banned slavery and the slave trade and enslaving people, but then they just take on a whole new business model of bringing in very, very poor women and children to work in factories for nothing. Speaker 0 00:34:16 Yeah. Well, I think it's, uh, you know, industrialization causes this need for a huge sheep, easily controlled labor pool. Speaker 1 00:34:30 And I, I want to clarify, I'm not equating slavery and that's not at all, but I'm saying there's a, there's a void in the labor market. And so then they sell it by employing Speaker 0 00:34:42 Here's the thing though. Some people at the time who are critics of the wage labor system, do compare it to slavery. And in some apologists for slavery actually goes so far as to say the slave system in the South is superior to the wage labor system that's developing in the North. Speaker 1 00:35:02 It's wild. I I've heard people make that argument. I would never do. Speaker 0 00:35:09 You read these editorials? They write and they write books and they, this is where they start to kind of develop the whole myth of the benevolent master kind of sitting amongst the slaves on Sunday, listening to a sermon and doing things like that because they argue at the end of the day, the factory owner doesn't care at all about his employees. Speaker 1 00:35:32 The plantation owner does care about his slaves and then feeds them and close them and all that. I think that that's totally, Speaker 0 00:35:41 But I mean, that's the thing is by the middle of the 19th century, you have this head to head conflict between slave labor and wage labor. Um, even the, one of the people who kind of writes a Seminole text that influences people to support abolishing slavery, Harriet Beecher, Stowe, uncle Tom's cabin. She's a huge supporter of wage labor. And she actually doesn't care whether wage laborers are treated right. Speaker 1 00:36:09 Well, and oftentimes wage laborers, aren't given enough wages to live, to even scrape by. Right. We've had a lot of discussions about like the scraping thesis and all of that. And to me what's crazy is like, they're both bad humans. Aren't being treated properly. And, and you know, to say, well, we're going to get rid of one evil. And then now we're morally superior because we got rid of that one evil, but then we're going to perpetuate another type of evil, evil. And now we're just morally superior. It's, it's crazy how that happens. And we see that time and time again throughout history, right? Where, you know, there's like these two warring sides, well, this is bad. This is bad. And it's like, one is like slightly better than the other or better than the other, but it's still not great. But then that side wins out and then we think, okay, it's over. We're one. So Speaker 0 00:37:07 By the end of the 19th century, you know, we've got children and women working in factories, but you've also got the rise of an organized labor movement in organized labor, very early on, decides groups like women and children make it harder for them to demand concessions from factory owners, Speaker 1 00:37:33 Because I really don't care about the women and the children. Right. Speaker 0 00:37:38 And they're easily controllable. I mean, is that a fair statement? Speaker 1 00:37:42 Yeah, I would say so because the labor unrest and the beginning of like, you know, these labor unions and stuff, it's bloody and it's violent and they don't really want the women in the children out on the front lines of that necessarily. But then other arguments start happening where middle-class white women come in to be saviors to the women and the children and say, do we need to get them out of this environment? But no, I think it's fair to say that they don't really want women in part of the movement anyway, because it's a really, um, it's a really contentious environment and they don't want women and part of it, Speaker 0 00:38:20 Well, I mean, it's so it's, I'm glad you brought up the middle-class reformers because here, so here you've got women in the middle class, so they have no kind of real labor demands on them because they have servants at home, um, to do domestic labor. Um, they don't have to go out and work their children. They have kind of nannies and things to take care of their children. They're overseeing it all. But at the end of the day, they have a lot of free time. And these women read and they start to talk with one another and they actually, one of the things they do is they decide to go out and make the lives of lower class people better. And what are the ways they decide to do that is to go out and dictate how you should be a proper mother, which I think is ironic. Speaker 1 00:39:08 Well, they have a lot of moral reform ideas, right? As they sit around these club women, they have lead lives of leisure. They sit around other people, raising their kids. Like you mentioned, they sit around and talk about all that's wrong with the world. And they come down to these, you know, we get these major moral reforms in the early 20th century as a result of these women's clubs, really. And it's like, people need to stop drinking. People need to stop whoring around and we need to get kids out of the factories. That's how we'll make the world a better place. And so you see major pushes towards prohibition of alcohol, major pushes towards cracking down on sex work. Um, and then you see major pushes toward getting kids out of factory life. And that is so reliant on the shift in sentiments toward children. We, we really shift the way we even think about kids. And this happens starting in the 19th century, but into the 20th, no doubt. We start having considerations of children's emotional needs and its clients. What was that? Speaker 0 00:40:16 So Mary Harris Jones, mother Jones, she's one of the big early advocates for the plight of child's workers. Here's the thing though. I'm not sure. And this was one of the controversial things I was going to bring up. I'm not sure most of the people who are kind of leading the push to get children out of labor really are doing it for the children. I think she is. I think Samuel Gompers is so Samuel Gompers, um, American Federation of labor, he actually wants to get children, improve their conditions, working or get them out of labor. I think the reason he wants to do it as children, as long as children are able to be kind of employed freely, it's going to hurt organized labor. So he wants to do that. Um, and I think some other people who kind of want them pushed out of the labor force, want that done to make it easier for men to kind of negotiate with factory owners and employers, um, to kind of restrict that labor market. But what I think is interesting is so you've got an urban family, um, maybe an urban immigrant family, um, where everybody in the family is working. Speaker 0 00:41:36 Suddenly the children are kind of, we decided they shouldn't be working. It's a lot of income that family is gonna lose. As little as people are being paid, it adds up, Speaker 1 00:41:47 You know, I have the same sentiment and I arrived at the same conclusion. It kind of EFS people up big time in the poorest of people because Speaker 0 00:41:57 Right. It demonizes a way out of poverty. Speaker 1 00:42:02 It demonizes their very way of life. Yeah. And then suddenly the children aren't allowed to work. The parents lose a ton of income and you have a massive surge of orphaned children in the 1920s and thirties, as a result of them being kicked out of the labor market they're or they're institutionalized, Speaker 0 00:42:29 Right? I mean, that's the thing is like, as long as your children could work, if you were very poor, at least they were bringing you a little money in, but once they are no longer allowed to work, you know, you want them out as fast as possible. So the first kind of step towards getting children out, uh, is 1904, the national child labor committee gets formed. And it becomes one of the main catalyst for kind of trying to reform or regulate child labor, but also eventually push them out of the labor market. And I think it's useful to talk a little bit about what children did in the late 19th and early 20th century factory work-wise. So you had this street trades that are talked about before, which had long been around. Um, but you also had factory work and you have these huge machines, particularly the textile industry and idle machines produce no profit. So it's important. Those machines are kept running constantly. So in something like the textile industry, if you've got a spinning machine, that's kind of spinning thread, um, you don't want to shut it down because it's going to take a while to reset it and get it started up against you want it running as fast as possible, but things fall underneath the machine. Sometimes adjustments have to be made. Children have little hands they're small. They can crawl under things. Very useful. Um, Speaker 1 00:44:03 I mean, literally it's funny, but it's also like, it's true. They're little and they can tell. And yeah. Speaker 0 00:44:10 So, so in a lot of these factories, these textile mills, um, children were responsible for gathering the lent that would gather under these machines because that's potential product. Speaker 1 00:44:21 Well, and it's a fire hazard too. If it's just sitting around like that, Speaker 0 00:44:24 I care about the fire. We don't want factory, I guess they do kind of, but I think they care more about that as potential product that's being lost on you. Um, and so what if some children lose their hands in the process? Speaker 1 00:44:41 Oh my God, I, and that's what starts getting people really riled up these middle-class women. So there's an unintended consequence to what they're doing. I mean, some of these women are being benevolent, right? Like we're going to come in and save these kids' lives, but then they like ruin them. But at the same time there, they really are concerned about like, these kids are getting hurt, they shouldn't be getting hurt, but then like, what's the alternative, they end up in an orphanage, which is what happens. Speaker 0 00:45:11 Right. Right. Well, I mean, you get compulsory education starts skinned or reduced, which, you know, the standard. Speaker 1 00:45:21 No, because yeah, so they go to school, but there are mouth to feed and a lot of parents put them out. This is what they would call it. Right. They would be placed out to farms who needed help or actually just put into an institution. I mean, it's really sad. Speaker 0 00:45:38 So 1906, Albert Beveridge, um, he's a Republican from Indiana introduces, um, legislation to prevent the employment of children in factories of mines. So children were employed in mines as well. They're called breaker boys. And they were kind of given the responsibility of separating, uh, at least in kind of Virginia or West Virginia, Kentucky. They were given the responsibility of separating coal from slate, um, kind of a very time consuming job, uh, that didn't require a lot of strength, but 1906 that that's introduced. We need to ban children being employed in factories and mines, and it gets debated for awhile and kind of falls out. Uh, and doesn't actually get approved until 1907. I mean, it takes a year for them to kind of finally decide that the secretary of commerce and labor, um, and here's the words of the legislation we'll investigate and report upon the industrial social, moral, educational, and physical condition of women, child workers in the United States. So 1907, they actually commissioned a study and it is not until 1916 that we actually get something that pushes children out. And it is, um, the Owen Keating act 1960. Do you know how the federal government argues, do you know what the federal government argues? It's why it can regulate children working anywhere in the United States, the commerce clause? Speaker 1 00:47:25 Oh my gosh. Speaker 0 00:47:26 So the commerce costs, so 1916, they do the so-and Keating act. Children cannot work in factories in minds, June, 1918, the Supreme court declared that unconstitutional, Which I find interesting. I mean, here's something that moral reformers have decided needs to be done. And the Supreme court says, yeah, technically this isn't constitutional. Speaker 1 00:47:54 Wow. I mean, what was the motivation there though Speaker 0 00:47:59 For the Supreme court to do that? The motivation is that they argued that the commerce clause could not be used that expansively, Speaker 1 00:48:08 But why wouldn't they have wanted to protect? Speaker 0 00:48:13 Well, I mean, think about what the Supreme court looks like in 1918, they want to protect children, but they also are kind of felt that they are limited by what the constitution does or does not permit the government to do yeah. Speaker 1 00:48:27 What a time to Speaker 0 00:48:27 Be alive. What a time, imagine that. Um, so what does Congress do next? Well, then they use taxes. Um, and there's a proposal to do a 10% tax on any industry that employs children in violation of certain age and our standards that Congress seeks to step set. Um, well, yeah. And this is the idea is it would offset any competitive advantage industries using child labor might enjoy because of that child labor. Speaker 1 00:49:02 Yeah. So then they, they, it doesn't even make economic sense for them to do it, right? Speaker 0 00:49:06 Yeah. May, 1922 Supreme court declares it unconstitutional. Speaker 0 00:49:15 Wow. So, I mean, this is interesting. So after this, um, people are wondering, they're like, well, how can we do this? Um, and it's actually, so there's a child labor amendment in 1924, um, to limit regulate and prohibit labor or persons under 18 years of age. Um, and this is, this is supposed to be a constitutional amendment because they actually say, look, the Supreme court is going to continue to override these until we get in the constitution. Obviously that amendment fails. There is no amendment, the constitution that limits regulates and prohibits persons under 18 years of age from working in certain industries. But what actually happens is it's not until the new deal where we finally get the fair labor standards act passed Speaker 1 00:50:07 By state decision too, because States have different child labor laws, and you can get a job depending on how old you are and your consent of your parents based on what state you live in and what your, what labor you're performing. Speaker 0 00:50:19 And I think part of it, and this is, I mean, one of the stories of the new deal is there's a large number of young men who are unemployed, roving the country. So we got that big damn belt while we got that big dam built, but there's also anxiety that we have to cater to them because if we don't Speaker 1 00:50:40 To them, but Speaker 0 00:50:43 We have to address their grievances because if we don't, it might lead to big unrest. So finally, I mean, what I want to argue is this, the reason child labor has finally pushed out has nothing to do with the morality of having children work. It has to do with providing employment opportunities for men who are out of work during the great depression. Speaker 1 00:51:09 That makes a lot of sense. I mean, I would, I'm inclined to agree with that, that it has nothing to do with the morality, but I would say that it was first brought to the attention by these outrage moral. Um, but I mean, the other thing is the increase in people who are going to school and compulsory education, the fact that people were having to go to school, I mean, it was, it was the law to end up being in school by that time. Right? I mean, you had to go to a certain amount of schooling. Um, there, there are deterrents in place to beat, to hiring children in the first place. Now. I mean, it's a really slow thing, but yeah, basically a lot of young men needed to work. And so they're not going to let them employ children. And you see the birth rate plummet. Speaker 0 00:51:59 Well, this is the thing once. And here's what the federal layer, uh, fair labor standards act actually says. Um, oppressive child labor is as band a commerce or in their production of goods for commerce persons. Under 18 years of age may not be employed in mining or manufacturing or, and quote any occupation which the secretary of labor shall declare to be particularly hazardous for the employment of children or detrimental to their health or wellbeing. Otherwise 16 years of age is the usual minimum age for employment. The secretary may permit the employment of persons 14 to 16 years of age in work, not deemed depressive that does not interfere with schooling and it's not detrimental to health or wellbeing. Additionally, the secretary of labor establishes hours during which children of various ages could work, but there are exemptions guess where there's an exemption Speaker 1 00:52:58 Maybe in like agricultural labor. Speaker 0 00:53:02 Yeah. Uh, there's also an exemption for the street trades, like newspaper delivery, which brings me back around to Walt Disney paper. His dad owned a, um, a newspaper route in Kansas city and Walt Disney and his brother, Roy worked as delivery boys, these paper delivery boys, you know, where there's not an exemption either. Speaker 1 00:53:26 And I don't think that he would even be, uh, put into some sort of law, but domestic servitude. I mean, kids are, do all sorts of domestic labor, whether for themselves or other families. I mean, I was a hustling babysitter when I was like 13, 14, 15 years old. I was on all the time babysitting, babysitting. I worked at my grandmother's daycare. Um, taking care of kids, making food, domestic labor is never considered actual labor. Right. And that's a huge, huge problem in this country. And it's gender specific oftentimes, but there's no, there's no exemption. There there's no laws or rules about what kind of domestic servitude kids can be subject to in addition to their school labor. Right, right. Speaker 0 00:54:10 Yeah. It's um, Speaker 1 00:54:15 I'm just starting to think. Speaker 0 00:54:20 I mean, I think it would be a violation of something. Speaker 1 00:54:24 Well, if there was a statute against domestic labor. Yeah. Well, there's this idea though that like what happens in your house is what is your business? Speaker 0 00:54:33 Well here's yeah. So here's the thing. One of the agricultural exemptions says that children youths under 12 years old, they perform jobs on farms owned or operated by a parent or with a pair of written consent outside of school hours in non-hazardous jobs, on farms, not covered by minimum wage requirements. Speaker 1 00:54:52 But see, there's like a, there's a fine line here between like you're just helping out the family and just doing things that your family does and child labor. I mean to where is the line? I guess? I mean, what they're trying to say is there's no, you can't be on a tractor or something. You can't put your kid on a tractor to go plow the field or something, but their house, Speaker 0 00:55:15 But, but well, but then there's another exception. Children of any age are allowed to work on a farm owned or operated by a parent. Is that wrong? I don't know. And, and here's the thing it's I think it is because again, I think it is, I don't know. I think there's something about de-valuing shoulder of certain socioeconomic levels is going on there, but here's the thing I think one of the problems is we've never been able to satisfactorily define and value out domestic labor performed by women in the household. Speaker 1 00:55:54 That's what it comes down to. Speaker 0 00:55:57 And I think if, if we could do that, then you would start to move a little bit more towards, okay, well, what about situations where you have children performing some of those domestic duties? Um, you know, if a child is required to babysit their siblings four hours a day, five days a week, that's a 20 hour job, right? So many kids Speaker 1 00:56:24 Do that, but where is the line though, of like you're participating in functioning within a family unit and child labor, because, and the other thing too here is like kids, a lot of times really liked to help do things, right? Like every night the kids want to help me make dinner. Should I be like, Oh, well I got to clock you in for cooking dinner. And like, you know, like, it's kind of weird when you think about it, that way of like, it's not labor, I'm not employing them. It's like, you're teaching them a skill, but then we kind of circle back to the apprenticeship thing and how abusive that could be. Speaker 0 00:56:58 Right. Well, do you think it's abusive when schools have children stand out on the street corner with boxes of candy bars and saw them Speaker 1 00:57:07 Okay. As an adult looking back on that, I'm like, Oh my gosh, that's nuts. But I liked doing it as a kid Speaker 0 00:57:19 Telling stuff Speaker 1 00:57:20 Dangerous. My parents would just send me out with like a box of see's candy, head on down, you know? I mean, they weren't, they'd be like go to houses. You know, they weren't actually, but I wouldn't go door to door, to door sometimes with my brother sometimes not sometimes with another kid. And we would sell candy bars to people. And I loved to doing that. We would sell wrapping paper, candy bars, um, the girl Scouts sold girl scout cookies door to door. That's what they used to do. I didn't do that. But kids like doing that. So what is the, where is the line there too? Just like they want to do it. Speaker 0 00:57:57 I don't know, Speaker 1 00:57:59 Put them in a bubble and say like, you never have to have anything hard in your entire life. Speaker 0 00:58:05 Here's the thing is I think you have to balance kind of providing for their education and future employability with allowing them to be children. And I think if, Speaker 1 00:58:18 To allow somebody to be a child, that's the crux of the argument too, because that sentiment changes over time. Because in the colonial era, there was no such thing as allowing somebody to be a child. And so this notion of childhood period is, is kind of brand new. And the idea that they're like, they're not supposed to contribute to the family economy. That's new. And I'm, you know, I would never make my kids do stuff like that, obviously, because I'm conditioned socially conditioned to our current state where children have a childhood and they play all day and they learn and you know, they grow and enrich and blah, blah, blah, of course, cause I'm socially conditioned to that. But it is a social construction of recent social construction about what childhood even means and what children are deserving of. And the question that I asked you originally about what age are children? I mean, we've extended childhood well into our twenties because with insurance, right? If you think about like Obamacare, you can be on your parents' insurance until you're 26 years old. That's a huge extension of childhood when you say, Speaker 0 00:59:32 Oh yeah, I think that's, I'm going to sound like an old fart. Now. I think it's a generational thing though, too. I mean, there are, well, I think there are things that people of my generation, generation X we wanted out from under our parents so fast that we were willing to kind of suffer and whatever was necessary to get out from under that as quickly as possible. Whereas I think subsequent generations, maybe aren't they want the freedom afforded by getting out from under their parents' control, but they want the security provided by their parents. Speaker 1 01:00:10 Well, they want financial assistance and security. It also has to do, I mean, really all of this has to do with a completely broken system economically, right? You are financially trapped in our current system. And so many students now are crippled by student loan debt. Like there's there, you're told you have to go out and go to college, right? You have to get this. And like, most people can't pay for it. And they get strapped with all the student loan debt and they go out into the world at 21, completely riddled with debt. Whereas when you were 21 back in the colonial era, that's when you would be free to go out into the world and to make money. And you're you have no debt. Your debt is paid at 21. Speaker 0 01:00:51 I thought you were talking about me. Speaker 1 01:00:54 Well, no, I'm just wishing you an argument in that way to say that that's better. But think about that, right? That like at 21 years old, during the 17th century, that's when you went out completely debt-free and you had a skill and you could just go off and you've already had paid it. Whereas now when you're 21, you are just saddled with debt for years, Speaker 0 01:01:18 Depending on your social class. Speaker 1 01:01:20 Um, a lot of people in the United States are because we've moved our, the other thing too is like child labor still exists. We've moved it out of sight. Right? We don't look at it anymore, but I guarantee you the phone, your have in your pocket, the microphone, I'm talking on the headphones, the computer, whatever, some process by which these devices were made is at the hands of child labor from another country, child labor, doesn't go away. We move it. So we don't have to see it. Speaker 0 01:01:51 Right. It moves. So you're saying there's something wrong with capitalism. I mean, Speaker 1 01:01:57 I'm afraid to say it right now because there's the political climate it's really bad. Speaker 0 01:02:02 I think there is, I'd said we were turning over new leaf this year. I think there's time we call things out. Like this is how messed up it is. I mean, just listen to what we talked about episode about. Eventually the reason child labor gets formerly banned in dangerous professions has little to do with the welfare of the child. Speaker 1 01:02:29 It has everything to do with profits over people. Yes. Yeah. At every, at every turn. And what I would like to say though, too, is about the emotional looking at children, you know, starting in the 20th century, we do start to look at their emotional needs. But then also the shift, there's a shift now we're like children meet the emotional needs of parents. People have kids, not because they contribute anything. Not because they're like helpful around the house or helpful around the farm. They're accessories for adults now who are emotionally stunted. Right. Speaker 0 01:03:10 It's true. Anyway, anyway, so I I'm looking at my notes. There's so much I didn't get to bring up. I think we're going to have to have an episode where we talk about kind of, I wanted to talk about Horatio Alger. Um, Speaker 1 01:03:24 There's a lot to say there too. Yeah. Speaker 0 01:03:26 Yeah. I mean, maybe we can have an episode where we talk about success in the gilded age. Um, but, uh, Speaker 1 01:03:34 Part where I, what I said that people are emotionally stunted because that's the main way I know. Speaker 0 01:03:41 I think people look for fulfillment where they can nowadays and their children for many people, their children are their main source of fulfillment. Speaker 1 01:03:50 Yes. Because the capitalistic system is crushing everybody's soul and children are delightful. Speaker 0 01:03:58 Yes. There can be. Speaker 1 01:04:01 I would say like, I would say that there's like 95% delight in them. Speaker 0 01:04:06 That's a lot. Speaker 1 01:04:07 Maybe my children were very delightful. Jefferson Speaker 0 01:04:10 Nine month olds poop a lot. Yeah. That's true. Um, anyway, thanks for joining us today. I, this has been a fun conversation, what we wanted to do for awhile. Uh I'm Jeff and I'm Hillary until next time Speaker 2 01:04:29 <inaudible>.