Health and Safety Codes and Child Labor

In big businesses around the nation, there were very little health and safety codes. Lochner v. New York (1905) and Muller v. Oregon (1908) are two cases that the Supreme Court lectured the government into regulating businesses, this way they can protect the workers. The Court made a decision to make a law for forbidding bakers to work more than 10 hours a day in Lochner v. New York. In Muller v. Oregon the Court gave the state the right to limit hours for women workers. The state did not have the right to regulate business, so, by the Court’s worry for the healthy mothers, the Fourteenth Amendment was not violated. Building codes were eventually set that regulated the light, air, room size, and cleanliness. The buildings were also required to have fire escapes. Health Codes were for restaurants to maintain a clean atmosphere for their employees and customers.

Child labor had a physical toll on the children. They not only worked for very little money, they were physically stunted and crippled. Their backs would become permanently bent backwards. Their hands would cramp up so bad that they would be deformed, crippled. The children were deprived of sleep and often times, they wouldn’t grow to a normal height for their age. These children wouldn’t get an education like normal kids their age today. They were guaranteed to have the same living conditions and no improvements once they got to their parents age. Sixty cents for a ten-hour day was the average pay for them. Many nine-ten-year-old children died from the awful working conditions. Many Muckrakers would expose the businesses for their gruesome habits. A few Muckrakers that did this were John Spargo and Lewis Hines. The more reports the Muckrakers made, the more convinced the states were. Eventually the states passed laws that gave businesses a minimum age and the maximum hours the children could work.