Child labor legislation evolved slowly and unevenly in America over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In 1813, Connecticut became the first state to pass a law limiting child labor. Other states followed, some with strong laws and others with weak ones, but many states had no effective laws at all even by 1938, the year in which Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act which established uniform child labor restrictions throughout the United States. Over this 125 year period, the individual states passed very different laws but one interesting, common pattern emerges. Northern states had stronger child labor laws than the South and adopted them much sooner. Different cultural settings and economic conditions in the two regions may provide the explanation.
There are many different reasons why the North passed more child labor laws than the South. One of these reasons is because of the cultural differences between the North and the South. Education played a large role in this because the Puritans, who were more prevalent in the North, believed highly in schooling for children. This cut down on the amount of children who were able to work because they were forced to attend school for a certain amount of each year.
Another reason in which child labor was not as popular in the North was the unions. There were many more unions in the North than in the South. The union members worked hard to pass labor laws because the working children were taking many of the adult jobs. Children also lowered the wages for all workers, so the union members wanted to abolish child labor so that they could earn a larger salary.