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The Keating-Owen Act

Back in the day on September 1st, 1916, the Keating-Owen Act was signed into law imposing restrictions on child labor in the United States. As the first federal foray seeking to address the problem, the legislation was limited and indirect in its scope. Keating-Owen sought to limit child labor by regulating interstate commerce. The act called for the banning of sales of commodities produced by any factory or mine that employed anyone under the age of fourteen and sixteen respectively. Any facility that worked children under sixteen at night or for more than eight hours a day also fell under the new regulations. The legislation, however, said nothing of children laboring in agricultural industries and did nothing to compensate poor families who would lose an important though extremely comprised source of income. Keating-Owen, which was signed by President Woodrow Wilson in the hopes of securing re-election, was ultimately short-lived anyhow. The Supreme Court case Hammer vs. Dagenhart overturned it stating that congress had traversed its constitutional barriers.

It wasn’t until 1938, under FDR, that federal restrictions on child labor were finally put in place as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.

For Uprising, this is your truth professa’ saying it’s no mystery why they conceal our people’s history