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Keating-Owen Child Labor Act passed.

1916

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After the 1900 census revealed that over 2 million children are working in mills, fields, factories, and more, a national movement emerged to end child labor. The Keating-Owen Child Labor Act bans the sale of products from any factory, shop, or cannery that employs children under the age of 14, from any mine that employs children under the age of 16, and from any facility that has children under the age of 16 work at night or for more than eight hours during the day.

The U.S. Supreme Court will find the act to be unconstitutional in 1918 because it puts the government in a position of controlling interstate commerce. Attempts to regulate child labor will be unsuccessful until the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938.