With the help of one photographer who took photos of children at work, child labor in the US was eventually restricted by law in the mid-1900s.

Child labor was widespread until the formation of the National Child Labor Committee in 1904.

A 1912 congressional bill attempted to prohibit fake photos in the US

In the 1800s, photographs were held up as indisputable resources of truth. But the photography industry devised ways to alter photos, resulting in the rise of fraudulent photos—from shots with celebrities to the turn-of-the-century version of fake nudes—prompting government intervention.

The National Labor Relations Act gave workers the right to unionize in the US.

Hear an interview with Harvard Law School employee and labor law expert Sharon Block about how the parallel motivations of workers, employers, and government officials led to the creation of the National Labor Relations Act.

During the Great Depression, the US government used photography to document rural poverty.

Visually explore the federal government's evolving role in education.

With roots stretching back to the 18th century, unions have long been at the center of change in labor rights.

Explore the history of Labor Day in the United States.

Timeline of women in labor history

In 1866, newly freed black women working as laundresses in Jackson, Mississippi, formed a union and went on strike for higher wages. But it wasn't until 1974, that the Coalition of Labor Union Women was founded as America's only national organization for union women. Want to find out more about the history of women in the labor movement? Click here for the full timeline.

Dorothea Lange's iconic 'Migrant Mother' photo was just one image of many she captured of the woman with her children.

Many of Dorothea Lange's most iconic photos were taken while she was working for a New Deal program.

Nike’s labor practices became controversial in the 1990s—leading to widespread protests of the brand

In the 1990s, Nike came under fire for its use of factories with unsafe working conditions and child labour to produce its products. While Nike didn’t own the manufacturing sites, many people felt Nike was ultimately responsible for using sweatshops in countries like Vietnam and Thailand.

The Fair Labor Standards Act, a 1938 law guaranteeing time off for full-time employees, led to the modern vacation.

Dorothea Lange's photos of Japanese Americans interred in US concentration camps were censored.

​​The US government documented the forced removal of Japanese Americans in an attempt to garner support for the program.

Before 1965, US immigration law relied on nationality-based bans and quotas.

The first recorded worker strike in the United States predates the American Revolution.

Frances Perkins was the first woman in the US to hold a cabinet position

President Franklin D. Roosevelt named her the United States Secretary of Labor in 1933. In her cabinet seat, she not only helped establish the first federal minimum wage in the US, but also the Social Security Act.

130,000 working musicians once went on strike

The early days of the record industry looked much different than they do now. There were few national record labels and there were organized musicians who viewed themselves more as day laborers rather than artists. That allowed for an organized strike by the American Federation of Musicians.

What was life like as a slave in the US?

Over 2,500 former slaves were interviewed by writers and journalists in the late 1930s as part of the US Federal Writer's Project. The collection recorded images and firsthand verbal accounts of life as a slave, eight of which are highlighted in this article at the Library of Congress. See the humanity in each of these individuals with their firsthand accounts.

Dorothea Lange and her economist husband sought to document American poverty through collaborative works.

The woman in Dorothea Lange's 'Migrant Mother' photo felt that she and her children had been exploited.

The spooky images of Victorian mothers hiding as their babies posed

Taking pictures of your kids is a huge headache now, but it was even harder for mothers in the Victorian era, when camera technology made posing for photographs difficult. These weird photos will show you how these mothers got their kids to sit...

Since its inception in 1938, Congress has raised the federal minimum wage 22 times

If you want all the details about when and why these rate increases happened check out this resource from the US Department of Labor.

Despite being completely legal to discuss salaries with your coworkers, the practice largely remains taboo in the US, particularly amongst older workers.

Pay transparency—once considered taboo—is gaining momentum. Despite being legally protected since 1935, open salary discussions have only recently become more common, especially among younger workers. This overview explores how cultural norms, economic shifts, and new state laws are reshaping the conversation around what we earn.

See where the United States ranked in annual working hours per worker among major countries over time.

See photos of ultraviolet light therapy, widely administered in the early 1900s, particularly among children with skin diseases, tuberculosis, rickets, and more.

The first federal minimum wage wasn't set until 1938, when it was 25 cents per hour.

The Chinese Exclusion Act was America's first major immigration restriction

The act, signed in 1882, barred Chinese laborers from entering the United States, marking the first significant restriction on free immigration. This overview examines 19th-century Chinese immigration, rising anti-Chinese sentiment, and the diplomatic implications of exclusionary legislation.

The 13th Amendment's criminal exception enabled new forms of forced labor

Southern states exploited the amendment's clause allowing slavery "as punishment for crime" to arrest thousands of Black Americans on minor charges, leasing them to private employers through convict labor systems that persisted for decades.

Massachusetts passed the first law requiring children to be educated as early as 1642.

While critics of labor unions argue that unions make it difficult to discipline low performers and drive up labor costs, union advocates believe that unions are a useful tool for increasing workers' pay and benefits.

William Eggleston was one of the first non-commercial photographers working in color

When he began exhibiting his work in the '70s, most color photography was limited to advertising. Eggleston's "democratic" stills of working-class Americana were filled weith vibrant color and would go on to influence generations of photographers and filmmakers.

Under-5 child mortality has been cut in half since 2000, UNICEF reports

The United Nations Children's Fund works globally to protect children's rights and well-being. Its 2024 report on child mortality reveals that under-5 deaths have halved since 2000. The report includes interactive data visualizations that can be sorted by year or topic.

See rare Civil War photographs preserved by the National Archives

The Civil War was the first major American conflict documented by a camera, with its images distributed widely to the public. The National Archives' digital collection offers thousands of original Civil War images: portraits, battlefields, hospitals, and everyday life.

A 1922 Oregon initiative that sought to ban private education inadvertently strengthened parents' ability to pursue options outside the public school system, building the legal case for homeschooling.

In the 1920s, Rockwell worked as a commercial illustrator

After getting his start at Boys’ Life, Rockwell began illustrating advertisements for products like Jell-O and Orange Crush. Below is one of Rockwell’s advertisements for Jell-O, from 1923.

Check out the most iconic images captured by Dorothea Lange, the American photographer known as one of the 20th-century's greatest social documentarians.

The US apparel and textile industry was long set up to limit competition from nations in the developing world—but shifts in international trade regulation in the 1990s changed that, paving the way for the fast fashion industry to develop.

The first H-1 visa was created in 1952

Congress established the original H-1 visa in 1952 through the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 to let US employers temporarily hire foreign professionals of "distinguished merit and ability" when qualified American workers were unavailable—a precursor to today's H-1B program.

The US had roughly 1.6 million minimum wage workers as of 2021

Typically, minimum wage workers are young. They’re not only more likely to be a woman than a man, but also more likely to be single than married.

What's the role of forced prison labor in a land where slavery is illegal?

Companies across the South profited off the forced labor of people in prison after the Civil War. This hourlong investigative podcast episode explores the role forced (and often unpaid) prison labor has played in the US since slavery was abolished.

Early American citizenship was defined inconsistently by individual states.

The Fair Labor Standards Act established a minimum wage—but it didn't cover everyone

A 1966 amendment created the “tip credit,” which allowed restaurants to pay below minimum wage if tips compensated the difference. However, this federal tipped minimum wage has remained frozen at $2.13 per hour since 1991, whereas the regular minimum wage has increased multiple times since then.

Modern payday lending came about in the late 1990s

In the early 1900s, unlicensed "salary lenders" used to give consumers one-week loans at annualized percentage rates of more than 100%. But wage garnishment and financially abusive practices led some states to create special licenses for lenders and implement rate caps to protect consumers. In the 1990s, a series of deregulations in various states opened the door for the modern payday lending industry to take off.

6 union history facts

Founded in 1794, the Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers (who were leather workers and cobblers) is considered to be the first union in the United States.

Explore a list of some of the largest labor unions in the United States.

The iconic national park posters were created by New Deal artists hired through FDR's Works Progress Administration in the 1930s.

Pregnant teachers were once banned from public school classrooms after their first trimester, with school boards believing that they were bad influences on students.

Credit reporting's earliest origins in the 1700s resemble a game of telephone, with rural merchants asking their most esteemed neighbors to vouch for them to sleuthing urban lenders.

Listen to how the 1902 'poison squad' experiments changed food safety in America

As part of government research, a group of young men were paid to eat standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—which revealed the dangers of unregulated food. The work was led by the first FDA commissioner, Harvey Wiley, who helped end the "century of the great stomachache."