National Child Labor Committee

Produced by Lewis Hine, an American photographer, that was hired by the National Child Labor Committee to help sway public opinion on child labor.

The National Child Labor Committee

The National Child Labor Committee (NCLC) formed on April 25, 1904. The Committee grew out of a previously established Child Labor Committee in New York.  Leading figures of the National Child Labor Committee board included Jane Addams, Florence Kelley, Jacob Schiff, Lillian Wald, and Graham Taylor. The NCLC worked at the state and national level in efforts to protect against the exploitation of children in this new industrial age.

The Committee organized a variety of events, programs, and legislation in which to promote the welfare of children. In 1907 the NCLC created National Child Labor Day to highlight the loss of childhood. To increase public awareness and sentiment for child labor, the committee hired photographer, Lewis Hine. Hine’s work played an instrumental role through visual documentation of the dangerous conditions and mental and physical drain industrial labor had to the still developing bodies of children. Other efforts included state and federal lobbying for standardized child labor laws and a Child Labor Bureau to support this legislation.