<P> Individual states have a wide range of restrictions on labor by minors, often requiring work permits for minors who are still enrolled in high school, and limiting the times and hours that minors can work by age and imposing additional safety regulations . </P> <P> As the United States industrialized, factory owners hired young workers for a variety of tasks . Especially in textile mills, children were often hired together with their parents . Children had a special disposition to working in factories as their small statures were useful to fixing machinery and navigating the small areas that fully grown adults could not . Many families in mill towns depended on the children's labor to make enough money for necessities . </P> <P> The National Child Labor Committee, an organization dedicated to the abolition of all child labor, was formed in 1904 . By publishing information on the lives and working conditions of young workers, it helped to mobilize popular support for state - level child labor laws . These laws were often paired with compulsory education laws which were designed to keep children in school and out of the paid labor market until a specified age (usually 12, 14, or 16 years .) </P> <P> In 1916, under pressure from the NCLC and the National Consumers League, the United States Congress passed the Keating--Owen Act, regulating interstate commerce involving goods produced by employees under the ages of 14 or 16, depending on the type of work, which was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson . It was the first federal child labor law . However, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the law two years later in Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918), declaring that the law violated the Commerce Clause by regulating intrastate commerce . Later that year, Congress attempted to levy a tax on businesses with employees under the ages of 14 or 16 (again depending on the type of work), which was struck down by the Supreme Court in Bailey v. Drexel Furniture (1922). </P>

What are child labor laws in the united states