By the early 1900s, nearly two million children were working in the United States. From the coal mines of Pennsylvania to the cotton mills of New England, children worked long hours every day under stunningly inhumane conditions. After years and years of oppression, children began to organize and make demands for better wages, fairer housing costs, and safer working environments.
Some strikes led by young people were successful; some were not. Some strike stories are shocking, some are heartbreaking, and many are inspiring -- but all are a testimony to the strength of mind and spirit of the children who helped build American industry.

Reviews

Covering more historical ground than in her lauded photo-essay Growing Up in Coal Country, Bartoletti highlights the roles that children and young adults played in American labor strikes during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Bartoletti has a gift for collecting stories with telling details; her dense but highly readable prose brings individual children and the struggles in which they engaged vividly to life. Drawing from a broad expanse of resources (personal interviews, newspaper and magazine articles, primary and secondary book accounts), she spins the stories of 11-year-old Harriet Hanson, who joined striking workers in the Lowell, Mass., mills of the 1830s; 16-year-old Pauline Newman, a leader of the 1907 New York City rent protests and nicknamed "The New Joan of Arc"; as well as myriad other children who began to realize the unfairness of the conditions in which they worked and who took steps to change their situations. The handsomely designed volume is packed with an abundance of relevant historical photographs (several by Lewis Hine), with children at work or at protests staring out from almost every page. A final chapter recounts the creation of the National Child Labor Committee and offers a glimpse into the futures of the many children featured in earlier chapters. Both accessible and engrossing, this volume is tangible proof for would-be activists that children have made and continue to make a difference. Ages 9-up. (Nov.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Gr 5-8-This well-researched and well-illustrated account creates a vivid portrait of the working conditions of many American children in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Chapters are devoted to the Lowell, MA, textile-factory girls who worked 13-hour days as well as New York City's "newsies," who sold papers for Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. The strikers included are not only those who protested unfair work conditions, but they also highlight individuals like Pauline Newman, who, at 16, organized residents to protest their high rents during the New York City rent strike of 1907. Another chapter includes Mother Jones's famous march from Philadelphia to Oyster Bay, Long Island, to meet with President Teddy Roosevelt. Like the Pied Piper, she led striking children, and others, in an effort to reform labor laws so that youngsters would no longer work under inhumane and unsafe conditions. Chapter notes and a time line of federal child-labor laws are appended. Many black-and-white photos of both children at work and on strike help to make their plight real and personalize their stories. A fine resource for research as well as a very readable book.-Carol Fazioli, The Brearley School, New York City Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.