The 1700s and early 1800s witnessed the introduction of power-driven machines. Factories began to spring up across the United States. The owners of these factories found children as the best and cheap labor to operate their machines. Hence, many children began working before the age of 17. They had to work 12 to 18 hours a day, six days a week, in damp and dark factories to earn meager wages. These children had no leisure time and often fell sick. By 1810, about 2000,000 children hailing from poor families were working.

Eventually, teachers, church and people were aghast by the cruelty. This led Connecticut to pass a law in 1813 stating that all children must attend school. By 1899, 28 states had passed laws to stop child labor. It took a lot of effort to bring about a national child labor law. But they all failed for one reason or the other. It was only in 1938 that the Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act which designated minimum age of 16 years for work during school hours, 14 years for certain jobs after school and 18 years for hazardous work.

Currently, all the states within America have laws to regulate child labor. These laws have ended the working of children in factories and mines. However, children of migrant workers have no legal protection. Many of these children work in farms after school. Many other countries too have laws to minimize child labor but many times, the laws are not always strictly enforced.

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