Breaker Boys Research Paper

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My research paper is about the breaker boys and how they spent the majority of their lives in climate conditions, clothing/glove problems and finally, exhaustion problems (Hindman, Hugh D). However, before I mainly get into how the majority of their lives were as children and elderly. I am going to tell you what a breaker boy is and what they are supposed to do and how they do it. A breaker boys was not exactly a coal miner, they did the most labor in the coal mine. They’re jobs were to separate the impurities from the coal that were often mixed with impurities such as rock, slate, sulfur, ash (or bone), clay, or soil for 12 hours non-stop. However, breaker boys were mainly children from ages 8 - 12, but some were elders that could not work …show more content…

The breaker boys began in the U.S. and the U.K. in the 1860’s, but mainly began with the breaker boys in the 1880’s, but ended in the 1920’s because of the progressivism stopped it. Now I will tell you how the progressivism stopped it. The progressivism stopped by first, muckraking the breaker boys association or union. Teddy Roosevelt read it and so did other people (McDowell, John). He tried as much as he could to set child labor laws and finally got the vote in 1919 by Woodrow Wilson setting the Tax on Employment of Child Labor act, the court then ruled this as unconstitutional. Then finally in 1941, the court overruled the 1918 act and now kids below 18 years of age were not allowed to work outside of school because of any jobs that could cause any health problems like the breaker boys would (parents were half and half on this one because of the fact that they got less money to help out their families with, but on the other hand, they were happy that their children were now safe from health issues or problems). That is mainly how the breaker boys were lives were, and how they were stopped by the help of muckrakers, Teddy Roosevelt, and finally, Woodrow

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