National Child Labor Committee - Formation

Formation

Edgar Gardner Murphy, an American clergyman and author, is credited with proposing the National Child Labor Committee following a conference between Murphy's Alabama Child Labor Committee, and the New York Child Labor Committee. The conference culminated on April 25, 1904 at a mass meeting held in Carnegie Hall, New York City. At the meeting, both men and women concerned with the plight of working children overwhelmingly supported the formation of the National Child Labor Committee.

The new organization moved swiftly in procuring the support of prominent Americans. In November, 1904, barely half a year after its conception, the NCLC boasted the membership of leading politicians, philanthropists, clergymen, and intellectuals including: former president Grover Cleveland, Senator Benjamin Tillman of South Carolina, and the president of Harvard University, Charles W. Eliot.

In 1907 the NCLC was chartered by an act of Congress with a board of directors originally including prominent Progressive reformers such as Jane Addams, Florence Kelley, Edward T. Devine, and Lillian Wald. With the leadership of such prominent reformers, the organization quickly began to attract additional support and moved towards action and advocacy.

Read more about this topic:  National Child Labor Committee

Famous quotes containing the word formation:

    The formation of an oppositional world view is necessary for feminist struggle. This means that the world we have most intimately known, the world in which we feel “safe” ... must be radically changed. Perhaps it is the knowledge that everyone must change, not just those we label enemies or oppressors, that has so far served to check our revolutionary impulses.
    Bell (c. 1955)

    I want you to consider this distinction as you go forward in life. Being male is not enough; being a man is a right to be earned and an honor to be cherished. I cannot tell you how to earn that right or deserve that honor. . . but I can tell you that the formation of your manhood must be a conscious act governed by the highest vision of the man you want to be.
    Kent Nerburn (20th century)

    Those who were skillful in Anatomy among the Ancients, concluded from the outward and inward Make of an Human Body, that it was the Work of a Being transcendently Wise and Powerful. As the World grew more enlightened in this Art, their Discoveries gave them fresh Opportunities of admiring the Conduct of Providence in the Formation of an Human Body.
    Joseph Addison (1672–1719)