Congratulations to Dr. Nina Schneider, whose book Child Labour Opponents and Their Campaigns in the Americas: A Global Perspective (1888–1938) has just been pubilshed in the Dependency and Slavery Studies Series (DSS) with De Gruyter Brill.
This book explores the origins of activism against child labour. It tries to answer the questions: how and why did child labour develop into a key concern between the 1880s and 1930s? Who were the protagonists who first raised the issue of child labour as a global concern? The study offers the first account of the history of diverse and locally grounded – but nationally and frequently globally connected – child labour opponents in the Americas, their motivations and campaigns, at the turn of the 20th century. Schneider argues that, for the period between 1888 and 1938, one can identify similar protagonists, a joint goal, a broadly similar timing, common platforms, comparable campaigning mechanisms and many types of connections or entanglements across regions. Yet, unlike the global anti-slavery movement, opponents of child labour formed a loosely institutionalised network that lacked an international organisation that focused specifically on child labour. A global history approach to child labour opponents helps uncover large-scale patterns across societies and highlight similarities and differences between cases.