- [Narrator] In Chicago, more than 20,000 immigrant women and children worked in the garment industry, sewing in dark and oppressive sweatshops.

- People would set up a factory on the second floor of a house in the slums and people would also live there.

Remember, this was like no public sewage, often no running water, often no electricity.

- [Narrator] Many large manufacturing companies, including department stores like Marshall Field's, relied on this cheap, non-union labor, which in many cases was performed by children.

For the Hull House women, this was unacceptable, but one new resident had the experience and passion to put an end to it.

- Florence Kelley was college-educated from Pennsylvania and had a much greater experience in political action than Addams did.

- [Narrator] With her own three children in tow, 32-year-old Florence Kelley had just fled an abusive husband in New York and arrived in Chicago seeking a divorce.

She landed at Hull House and quickly learned of the plight of the children in the 19th Ward.

- Florence Kelley, she was very consistent.

The children, we have to protect the children.

They can't protect themselves.

- [Narrator] Addams encouraged Kelley to work with the city's trade unions, and together they began advocating for sweatshop reform.

- They knew they had to persuade a lot of people, legislators, but also citizens.

- [Narrator] Addams feared the pushback would be strong from many of the parents in her community.

- [Leigh] A lot of the immigrants, the men and some of the women, depended on their kids either begging, working in the factories, and bringing home the money to the parents.

Florence Kelley writes that the so-called reformers were viewed in the communities often as troublemakers, pests.

- [Narrator] But Addams and Kelley knew the children needed and deserved protection, and that they'd need hard facts if they were going to change hearts and minds.

Kelley persuaded the Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics to investigate the sweatshops.

The results were alarming.

Thousands of women and children were laboring in dangerous conditions for 10 or more hours a day, and for as little as 5 cents an hour.

- [Leigh] When you get a description of there is Celia, she is working from six in the morning until 10 o'clock at night and she gets a crust of bread to eat at noon.

That makes a huge difference.

- [Narrator] Kelley and Addams used stories like these to champion change.

- [Louise] They educated people.

They gave speeches where they presented the facts about child labor and about the hours that women were working.

They made it very vivid and real.

- [Narrator] As their movement gained momentum, some opponents tried to derail them.

- [Louise] This factory owner said, "Well, I know how we'll stop this movement."

And he said, "If you would just stop lobbying, in favor of this bill," he said, "I'll give you $50,000."

That's a lot of money in 1893.

- [Narrator] Addams refused the bribe.

- [Louise] And she said, "I don't want the people in the neighborhood to work under these conditions, so no thank you."

(train whistling) - [Narrator] Florence Kelley believed the time was right to travel to Springfield and lobby the state legislature.

- [Leigh] Jane Addams said she was like Athena, charging into battle, and she was just fearless.

- [Narrator] It was a bold move at a time when women didn't even have the right to vote.

- Addams had always thought that women shouldn't have anything to do with politics because they couldn't vote, but she overcame that prejudice.

- And they said, "You have to pass this."

(foot tapping) These women, they were not gonna take no for an answer.

- [Ross] People weren't used to women going into spaces like this and throwing their weight around.

- [Narrator] The all-male legislature was forced to take note.

- [Louise] They educated the legislators and they had facts, they had stories, and those are very persuasive.

- [Narrator] And incredibly, just a few months later, Illinois passed the factory and workshop inspections law, which prohibited the employment of children under the age of 14.

- So it was kind of a remarkable moment in Illinois history.

It was the first state law in the nation to limit women and older children to an eight-hour day.

- [Stacy] It was an immediate effectual way to help the lives of children.

It got them out of the factories and into the classroom.

It is a continuing legacy.

(children singing) I think a lot of the way we think about childhood today is rooted in that early work that Jane Addams did in carving out this period of childhood where children should be protected from the ravages of industry.

(children laughing)