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Kelley, Florence. Child labor legislation and enforcement in New England and the middle States. New York: National Child Labor Committee, [1905?].
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108 EAST 220 STREET
NEW YORK CITY
[Address delivered at First Annual Meeting of the National Child Labor Com-
mittee, New York City, February 14-16, , and reprinted from the
as published the of Political and Social Science, Philadelphia,
In Tn ANNALS of the Academy, Vol XXV., No.3, May, 1905.]


CHILD LABOR LEGISLATION AND ENFORCEMENT IN

NEW ENGLAND AND THE MIDDLE STATES


MRS. FLORENCE KELLEY,

Corr8lpOnding Secretary National Consumers' League New York City.


It is, of course, impossible to deal thoroughly with the legisla-
tion and the enforcement of laws in the ten states which have the
largest number of children at work. Yet such is my task, for the
Middle States and New England have all those industries which
call most insatiably for the work of boys and girls textiles and
needle-trades, tobacco manufacture, the glass trade, mining and
retail commerce.
These states run the gamut from Delaware, where the first
child labor law, enacted in 1905, is not yet in effect, to New York
and Vennont with the most advanced legislation yet achieved.
Perhaps the simplest way to deal with these ten states may be
to take them one by one with a few lines for each ; after pointing
out their position in the Census of 1900 with regard to illiteracy in
children. In that year these states, when graded by the actual num-
ber of children found illiterate between the ages of ten and fourteen
years, ranked as follows in the scale of fifty-two states and terri-
tories :

Number of Illiterate
RaDk States.
Children.Io-I4 Years
6 Vermont . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
12 Connecticut. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .436
14 New Hampshire. . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . 557
IS Rhode Island . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 691
18 Delaware. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 845
zi Maine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .- I,25 5
26 Massachusetts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,547
3I New Jersey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,069
35 New York. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,740
38 Pennsylvania . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6,326

Total, 18,7 S3