Infant industry

“ But even independent of these considerations, and irrespective of a past which can never be recalled, we mean to assert, as we have done elsewhere, in broad terms and the plainest language, that the infant labour, as it is erroneously329 called—or the juvenile labour, as it should be called—in factories, is in fact a national blessing, and absolutely necessary for the support of the manifold fiscal burthens which have been placed upon the industry of this country. It is quite sufficient to say that the children of the operatives have mouths, and must be fed ”

“ If children under sixteen were prohibited from working in the Southern cotton mills, would the manufacturers move? Would it not be a discovery pregnant with the most far-reaching importance for the future, if it were found that child labor is not at all necessary to industry, and that, after all, it entails just as great an industrial waste as it does a social one? ”

“ In the infancy of the system it became the custom of the master manufacturers to contract with the managers of workhouses throughout England and of the charities of Scotland, to send their young children to the factories of the great towns. Many thousands of children between the ages of six and ten were thus sent, absolutely uncared for and unprotected, and left to the complete disposal of masters who often had not a single thought except speedily to amass a fortune, and who knew that if the first supply of infant labor were used up there was still much more to be obtained. ”

“ Several times a week mothers’ classes are held, at which all possible stress is laid on the need for women to suckle their own children, this theoretical advice being re-enforced by the giving of prizes. If natural feeding is rejected or is impossible, advice is given as to suitable artificial feeding. Domiciliary visits are made to see that this advice is properly followed. Thus the Infant’s Milk Depots tend more and more to develop into centres for the general care of infancy ”

“ We must persevere in making every one his contribution to nurse our infant industries until they are strong.” The poor man may curiously inquire how old these infants are. He looks into the history of his country, and finds that several of them were no babies when in 1789 the government first began to nurse them, but were then satisfied with so little that at present it would seem no feeding at all. ”

“ It was Science which came to the rescue and created nurseries, cradles, rooms for babies, suitable clothes for them, alimentary substances specially prepared for them by great industries devoted to the hygienic sustenance of infants after weaning, and medical specialists for their ailments; in short, an entirely new world, clean, intelligent, and full of amenity. The baby has become the new man who has conquered his own right to live, and thus has caused a sphere to be created for him. And in direct proportion to the diffusion of the laws of infantile hygiene, infant mortality has decreased. ”

“ Here, as in medical prescriptions, it is futile to insist that a mother who is physically able shall nurse her baby if she is so poor that she must work under conditions that weaken her and thus reduce the grade and quality of her milk or that preclude leisure in which to nourish the infant. The question of poverty, that skeleton in every social closet, looms up here with an insistency that nothing will banish. No kind of philanthropy will solve the requirements of infant welfare when poverty or labor conditions are the root of the problem. ”

“ Finally, since the child-employing industries, while forming only a small percentage of industrial establishments, have brought the reproach of child labor upon American industry itself, the National Manufacturers’ Association was also mentioned. ”

“ In 1911 New York City authorized the municipalization of fifteen milk stations, and so [57] satisfactory was the result that the next year the appropriation permitted more than the trebling of this number. A nurse is attached to each station to follow into the homes and there lay the foundation, through education, for hygienic living. A marked reduction in infant mortality has been brought about and, moreover, a realization, on the part of the city, of the immeasurable social and economic value of keeping the babies alive. ”

“ The results are so far-reaching that one hesitates to put them into words, for fear they may seem overstated. After a little more than one year of hard work, the Better Babies Bureau of the Woman’s Home Companion, under the directorship of Anna Steese Richardson, has become a tremendous machine for aiding in the reduction of infant mortality, and for raising physical, mental, and moral standards among children. ”

“ Can this industrial evolution which has remade industry be described as a cause of child labor? If this view of the situation be accepted, it is apparent that the responsibility for the prevalence and increase of child labor in a modern community may be placed upon the character of modern industry.
In the South, where child labor in the cotton mills has developed some of the worst child labor conditions with which the country must contend, machinery is being built just high enough to accommodate a child. ”

“ This subject cannot now however be considered at length, and for our present purposes it is sufficient to point out how important it is alike for mother and child, alike for family and society, that the ever more and more widely and generally diffused practice of the artificial feeding of infants should be abandoned, and that there should be a return to the natural method according to which each mother nurses her own infant. The prevailing custom costs every year thousands of mothers their health, and thousands of children their lives. ”

“ S. Josephine Baker of the Bureau of Child Hygiene of the New York Health Department also has a large perspective in dealing with this problem. She says: “The evolution of the infants’ milk station is essential. Pure milk, however desirable, will never alone solve the infant mortality problem. Under our system of home visiting to instruct mothers in the care of babies we have demonstrated 61that babies may be kept under continuous supervision at the cost of 60 cents per month per baby, and the death rate among babies so cared for by us has been 1.4 per cent. ”

“ They herd geese, cows, sheep, and swine; work in the fields and in the mines; beg, sell matches, flowers, laces, newspapers; perform in the street, at the theatre, the circus, and the music-hall; work at home with their parents in inns and drinking saloons, and work in factories and workshops. In Germany, about two and a half million children are engaged in wage-labour, and of these more than 600,000 are of school age. Of these latter children of school age, nearly 60 per cent. are engaged in manufacturing industry. The number of children employed on Sunday is certainly not less than 100,000. ”

“ It is in these departments of the trade that we see infant labor in its worst light. The number of hours these infant victims are kept incessantly at work, in confined apartments, and the tender ages at which they are put to it, would be almost incredible to a stranger. All this, however, is substantiated by facts, which place the matter beyond the possibility of a doubt. Almost all the families employed in the lace manufacture of Nottingham, are supported, more or less, by the labor of their children. ”

“ Turn-tables have for the most part been abolished, so that they remain to-day in a few countries only, and in a few foundling hospitals. Unrestricted and secret reception of infants has been replaced by restricted and public reception; institutional care has given place to external care; natural feeding, wherever possible, is preferred to artificial feeding. By these means, the infant mortality has been greatly diminished, and those children that survive receive a much better upbringing. ”

“ Radical Solution of the Problem.—It is one of the most important aims of child-protection that during the first year of life the infant should be nourished at the maternal breast. Every possible effort must be made to secure that the infant should not be separated from its mother; and if separation from the mother is unavoidable, that the child should not be hand-fed, but suckled by a wet-nurse. Finally, when artificial feeding of the infant is inevitable, it is the aim of child-protection to secure that the technique of this feeding should be the best possible. ”

“ In manufacturing regions, in times during which female unemployment is widely prevalent, there is a decline in infant mortality, in spite of the increasing poverty resulting from the lack of employment. The death-rate of the children, and more especially the death-rate of the infants, in any area, is found to increase in a direct ratio with an increase in the number of hours that the mothers work away from their homes, and to vary inversely with the amount of the daily earnings. ”

“ For these nurseries attempt to minister only to physical wants. Although the needs of the child at infancy seem to be largely physical, we know, that from the day of its birth, the infant is getting impressions and forming habits. The manner in which we satisfy his needs, the habits which he forms under our care, shape his future character,—and yet, the training of the so-called trained nurses in charge of the average nursery, enables them to attend to the physical needs only. ”

“ We can tell our health officers that the best results in fighting infant mortality are at Rochester, which city, winter and summer, [266] by inspection, correspondence, and punishment, educates farmers and dealers in cleanliness, not only censuring when dirty or careless, but explaining how to make more money by being clean. Finally, mothers can be taught at home how to cleanse the bottles, the nipples, all milk receptacles, and all things in rooms where milk is kept. Absolutely clean milk of proper temperature at the shop may not safely be given to a baby in a dirty bottle. ”

“ An experienced manufacturer has said, "You can protect a machine, you can guide the buzz-saw, but no law that you can enact can, in a large industry, protect the heart and soul of the child."
A marked improvement has been made in the last five years in combating the evils of child labor. Many states forbid the employment of children under fourteen years of age in factories and mills—but in North and South Carolina, in Georgia and Alabama, children under fourteen are still permitted to labor in factories ten or twelve hours a day. ”

“ It is estimated that the yearly crop of babies, 700,000, if those of the well-to-do be excepted, can be provided with infant welfare centres and whole-time health visitors by expenditure at the rate of £1 a head per year. The Government, which is benevolently disposed towards the movement, gives half of the annual expenditure ”

“ It has been pointed out that the great majority of unmarried mothers belong to a social stratum in which the average income is extremely low. A maid-servant receives at best [in Germany and Austria] an annual wage of from £10 to £15, a female factory-hand from £25 to £30. The maintenance of an infant, if the elementary principles of the hygiene of childhood are to be observed, and if the foster-parents are to make any profit at all, costs at the very least £15 a year. The mere nutriment of a child during the first year of life costs 4d. ”

“ This woman keeps cows, chickens, and lodgers; also earns money doing laundry and char work. Husband deserts her at times; he makes $1.70 a day. A 15-year-old son makes $1.10 a day in coal mine. Mother thin and wiry; looks tired and worn. Frequent fights in home.
The infant mortality rate was lower for babies delivered by physicians than for those delivered by midwives or for those at whose birth no properly qualified attendant was present. ”

“ Child labor is wasteful to industry. The statement of the Treasurer of the Alabama City Mill is not an isolated opinion. Manufacturers everywhere are being forced to the new viewpoint. The philosophy is well summed up by a silk manufacturer:—"So far as the economy of production goes, as a manufacturer I think we can do without the labor of children." [2] Child labor is undoubtedly cheap labor. But is not the product cheaper than the labor involved in its creation? ”

“ No hard and fast rule will tell us what can be dispensed with in 'the production of goods.' All depends upon the detail with which that bare phrase is clothed. In the law of infants' liability, what are 'necessaries' may well vary with the environment to which the infant is exposed: climate and station in life and many other factors. ”

“ Briefly the causes of child labor may be thus stated:—The system of modern industry with its labor-saving appliances, its means of employing mechanical power, and its division of labor, makes the manufacture of cheap goods possible; an insatiable public demand for quantity rather than quality leads the manufacturer to turn out many things and cheap ones; in turning out these cheap goods, the manufacturer, through the division of labor and the development of machinery, is enabled to employ children ”

“ In the interests of their health and education, it seems only reasonable that remedies which have proved so valuable in the case of factory children should in some form be extended to cover the whole field of child labour. ”

“ A perusal of the reports on infant mortality in widely varying industrial centers of the United States, published during the past decade by the Children's Bureau of the United States Department of Labor, forces us to a realization of the immediate need of detailed statistics concerning the practice and results of uncontrolled breeding. ”

“ He took a leading part in the exposures which led to the inquiry into the state of London workhouse infirmaries, and to the reform of the treatment of sick poor throughout England, and the Infant Life Protection Act of 1872, aimed at the evils of baby-farming, was largely due to his efforts. ”