March of the Mill Children (1903)

Tue Jul 07, 1903

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Image: Mother Jones surrounded by striking child mill workers. Source: Library of Congress [zinnedproject.org]

The March of the Mill Children was a three-week trek from Philadelphia to New York by striking child and adult textile workers, led by Mother Jones, launched on this day in 1903. At the time, approximately one out of six children under the age of sixteen were employed, according to the 1900 census.

The march began when Mother Jones tried to get newspapers to report on the conditions of child workers and they informed her that they would not run the stories about child labor because of the mill owners holding stock in the papers. Jones replied “Well, I’ve got stock in these little children and I’ll arrange a little publicity.”

The march successfully won that publicity, bringing national attention to the plight of working children. On July 29th, Jones and fellow marchers arrived at Roosevelt’s Sagamore Hill summer home, where he refused to meet with them.

Although the strike was initially a failure, it galvanized support for anti-child labor laws to be passed on the national level, which finally occurred with the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.