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Timeline of young people's rights in the United States

Baseball team composed mostly of child workers from a glass factory. Photograph by Lewis Hine, 1908.

The timeline of young peoples' rights in the United States, including children and youth rights, includes a variety of events ranging from youth activism to mass demonstrations. There is no "golden age" in the American children's rights movement.[1]

Pre-19th century

The history of youth rights in the United States ranges from the earliest years of European settlements on North America. Poor children were routinely and legally indentured in colonial New England by the "poor laws." In 1676 Nathan Knight, an eight-year-old boy, was apprenticed to a mason, "bound... to serve and abide the full space and term of twelve years and five months." Provided food, shelter and clothes in exchange for his labor, the boy was not allowed to leave his master until he was 21 years old.[2]

19th century

By the end of the 19th century, American children worked in large numbers in mines, glass factories, textiles, agriculture, canneries, home industries, and as newsboys, messengers, bootblacks and peddlers.[3]

20th century

Before the 1930s children were routinely exploited in a variety of settings throughout American society. Frequently beginning their working lives before their tenth birthday, children worked in hazardous jobs at mines, mills, factories, sweatshops, and on farms, with little or no wages. Labor laws did not exist, and the common perception of the ease with which children were manipulated made them targets for a variety of rights violations.

In the 1980s the United States provided global leadership by acting as the "Tip of The Spear" among nations in crafting the Convention on the Rights of the Child, or CRC. After the United Nations adopted the CRC in 1989, the United States became a signatory nation in 1994. However, to date the country has refused to ratify the Convention, joining only one other nation in the world with that status. Among the reasons the United States has failed to ratify the Convention is the fact that the Convention clearly states that anyone under the age of 18 is a child. The U.S. government has reservations about how that would affect matters when a 16- or 17-year-old commits a crime; currently, in certain instances, such a person can be tried as an adult in the U.S. courts. Several politicians have said that many of the declarations included in the document are not issues for which the federal government is in charge. There is currently no apparent effort within the federal government to adopt the CRC.[13]

Youth activists in a 1909 parade protesting child labor.
An (est.) seven-year-old newsboy in Washington, D.C. in 1921.
An 11-year-old picking cotton in Oklahoma in 1916.
An eight-year-old newsboy in St. Louis, Missouri in 1910.

21st century

Modern children's rights issues in the United States include child labor laws, including many agricultural settings where young people between the ages of 14 and 18 routinely work full time jobs and receive half of the minimum wage.[32] Another common issue is child custody. Laws that make it extremely difficult for non-custodial parents to spend quality time with their children. After two hearings in Congress, children's rights during treatment became a focus.

Current status

Today, the American Academy of Pediatrics advocates for children's rights to appropriate medical care, and states that in cases of "an imminent threat to a child's life," physicians in some cases may provide treatments to children, even if these treatments are opposed by the parents because of their religious beliefs.[37]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Guggenheim, M. (2005) What's wrong with children's rights. Harvard University Press. p 1.
  2. ^ "History of apprenticeship", Washington State Department of Labor and Industry. Retrieved 4/23/08.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Child Labor Public Education Project. (2007). Child labor in US history. University of Iowa. Retrieved 7/6/08.
  4. ^ Burns, M. (1977) I Am Not a Short Adult! Getting good at being a kid. New York: Little, Brown and Company. p. 100.
  5. ^ Scarr, A. and Weinberg, C. (1986). "The Early Childhood enterprise: Care and education of the young," American Psychologist. 41. p 1140.
  6. ^ Burns, M. (1977) I Am Not a Short Adult! Getting good at being a kid. New York: Little, Brown and Company. p 100.
  7. ^ "Timeline of adoption history", Adoption History Project at the University of Oregon. Retrieved 7/5/08.
  8. ^ Cooley, R.W. and Tiffany, W.C. (1913) "Fletcher v. People", Illustrative Cases on Persons and Domestic Relations. West Company. p 181.
  9. ^ a b "Mary Ellen Wilson", American Humane. Retrieved 4/23/08.
  10. ^ Johnson, M.A., "Hull House," in eds. Grossman, J.R., Keating, A.D. and Reiff, J.L. (2004) The Encyclopedia of Chicago. The University of Chicago Press. p. 402.
  11. ^ Schaefer, J.K. () "New York School of Philanthropy" Archived 2008-05-28 at the Wayback Machine, LearningToGive. Retrieved 7/5/08.
  12. ^ Rosenheim, M.K., Zimring, F.E. and Tanenhaus, D.S. (eds) (2002) A Century of Juvenile Justice. University Of Chicago Press.
  13. ^ Yurchyk, B. (2008) "The United States’ Compliance Decisions with Regards to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Two Optional Protocols: Reflections on the Theories of International Law," Ohio State University. Retrieved 7/6/08.
  14. ^ Peck, H.T. and Colby, F.M. (eds) (1906)The New International Encyclopaedia. Dodd, Mead and Company. p 624.
  15. ^ Ford, E. (1999) "Private Initiative and Public Support: The Chicago Juvenile Protective Association," The First 100 years of the Cook County Juvenile Court. Chicago Bar Association. p 30.
  16. ^ a b Burns, M. (1977) p 102.
  17. ^ a b c "Adoption History: Timeline of adoption history". Adoption History Project at the University of Oregon. Retrieved 7/6/08.
  18. ^ Bridgman, A. (1989). Early Childhood Education and Childcare. Arlington, VA: American Association of School Administrators.
  19. ^ Gordon, A. and Browne, K.W. (1996). Beginnings and Beyond. Albany, NY: Delmar.
  20. ^ Yell, M. L. (1998). The law and special education. Columbus, OH: Merrill-Prentice Hall.
  21. ^ Walker, N.E., Brooks, C.M. and Wrightman, L.S. (1998) Children's Rights in the United States: In Search of a National Policy. Sage Publications. p 4.
  22. ^ Sealander, J. (2003) The Failed Century of the Child: Governing America's Young in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge University Press. p 42.
  23. ^ Rodham, H. (1973). "Children Under the Law". Harvard Educational Review 43: 487–514.
  24. ^ "Major Federal Legislation Index and Search - Child Welfare Information Gateway". www.childwelfare.gov. Retrieved 2017-07-12. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  25. ^ Hofferth, S.L. (1987). Implications of family trends for children: A research perspective. 44, 78-84.
  26. ^ (nd) Child Labor Archived 2007-05-17 at the Wayback Machine. Senator Tom Harkin website. Retrieved 5/9/07]
  27. ^ Tucker, L. (2000) Fingers to the Bone: United States Failure to Protect Child Farmworkers. Human Rights Watch. p. 78.
  28. ^ Rutkow, L. and Lozman, J.T. (2006) "Suffer the Children?: A Call for United States Ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child," Harvard Human Rights Journal. 19 (Spring). p 159-190.
  29. ^ a b "Why am I here?" Children in Immigration Detention Report Executive Summary, Amnesty International. Retrieved 7/6/08.
  30. ^ "Reno vs. Flores" (sic), Cornell University. Retrieved 7/5/08.
  31. ^ Tucker, L. (2000) Fingers to the Bone: United States Failure to Protect Child Farmworkers. Human Rights Watch. p. 74.
  32. ^ "What Care Would Do", Child Labor in the U.S. Ryan Blitstein. Retrieved 7/27/09.
  33. ^ Yurchyk, B. (2008) "The United States’ Compliance Decisions with Regards to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Two Optional Protocols: Reflections on the Theories of International Law," Ohio State University. p 2. Retrieved 7/6/08.
  34. ^ Syllabus BROWN, GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA, ET AL. v. ENTERTAINMENT MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION ET AL. CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT, The Supreme Court of the United States, Retrieved 6/7/12.
  35. ^ [1], FairVote Retrieved 12/30/13.
  36. ^ "In a tight labor market, some states look to another type of worker: Children". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2023-02-19.
  37. ^ American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Bioethics (1997) Religious objections to medical care. Pediatrics, Vol. 99, No. 2, pp. 279-281.

External links

Bibliography