Low wages, injuries and sickness cause many people to live in poverty. To help their poverty stricken families and themselves a lot of children and women started working in unsanitary factories. “From 1880 to 1900 the number of employed women went from 2.6 to 8.6 million” (II. Hansen). Child labor was also one of the problems before and during the progressive era. “Many children began working before the age of seven, tending machines in spinning mills or hauling heavy loads. The factories were often damp, dark, and dirty.” One of the goals of the progressive movement was to raise awareness about how horrible child labor was and how the illiteracy rate was so high because many kids were working. “Concern for the conditions of the poor gave way to a growing interest in the rights of the working class. [4] One of the most persistent causes of Progressive Era reformers was child labor reform ”(III. Davis). In 1904 The national child labor committee forms and starts campaigning for a federal child labor law reforms. Their work pays off in “1938 Federal regulation of child labor achieved in Fair Labor Standards Act, For the first time, minimum ages of employment and hours of work for children are regulated by federal law” (