The Social Photography of Lewis Hineand

The Child Labor Reform Movement1880 - 1918

• What was the nature and extent of Child Labor in the Gilded Age and Progressive Period?

• How did the National Child Labor Committee work to “reform” the conditions of child labor?

• What was the nature and impact of Lewis Hine’s “social photography,” particularly his child labor photographs?

• How might the Lewis Hine’s child labor photographs and his social photography approach be used in history instruction?

At 5 p.m., boys going home from Monougal Glass Works.

One boy remarked, "De place is lousey wid kids."

Fairmont, West Virginia.

Lewis Hine, Photographer.

“This act modifies the child labor laws. It eliminates the prohibition on employment of children under age fourteen. Restrictions on the number of hours and restrictions on when a child may work during the day are also removed. It also repeals the requirement that a child ages fourteen or fifteen obtain a work certificate or work permit in order to be employed. Children under sixteen will also be allowed to work in any capacity in a motel, resort or hotel where sleeping accommodations are furnished. It also removes the authority of the director of the Division of Labor Standards to inspect employers who employ children and to require them to keep certain records for children they employ. It also repeals the presumption that the presence of a child in a workplace is evidence of employment.”

-Official Summary of a bill introduced into the Missouri Senate by State Senator Jane Cunningham (R)

“We are likely to find ourselves ... facing a situation in which our chief task is not to imagine better worlds but rather to think how to prevent worse ones, how to keep what we have gained by virtue of arduous struggles of those who have proceeded us.”

- Tony Judt (1945 - 2010)

In many developed countries, it is considered inappropriate or exploitative if a child below a certain age works (excluding household chores, in a family shop, or school-related work). An employer is usually not permitted to hire a child below a certain minimum age.

This minimum age depends on the country and the type of work involved. States ratifying the Minimum Age Convention adopted by the International Labor Organization in 1973, have adopted minimum ages varying from 14 to 16. Child labor laws in the United States set the minimum age to work in an establishment without restrictions and without parents' consent at age 16 except for the agricultural industry where children as young as 12 years of age can work in the fields for an unlimited number of non-school hours

What is Child Labor?

•The number of children under age 16 working doubled between 1890-1900, from 1. 1 million to 1.8 million By 1900, about 1 in every 6 children between the ages of five and ten were engaged in “gainful occupations” in the United States.

•In 1900, 18% of children aged 10-15 were employed, but these recorded numbers understate the actual number or percentage of all children employed, which might have been as high as 30%.

•Children under age 15 composed 25% of cotton industry workforce in 1900 and the ratio of children to adult workers was the highest in any industry.

•In the anthracite and bituminous coal mining industries, boys almost exclusively filled three occupations: slate picker, door tender, and mule driver.

•Children worked in most industries: glass factories canneries.

•Most newspaper vendors and messenger boys were juveniles.

“The Insidious Trend”

Some of the workers in the Farrand Packing Co. Baltimore, Maryland.

Photographer: Lewis Hine

• Slate picker: 6-10 cents/hr.

• Meat packer: 2 cents/hr.

• Glass factory hand: 3 cents/hr.

• Cannery worker: 2.5 cents/hr.

• Sweatshops: 1-2 cents/hr.

• Train yard helper: 1-2 cents/hr.

• Mule Driver: 6-10 cents/hr.

• Cotton mills: 5 cents/hour for experienced 12 year olds. (Some mills gave children the “opportunity” to gain experience by allowing them to work without pay for a probationary period of up to six weeks. At the end of the period, they often would be fired and replaced by a new set of children on probationary status.)

Why hire children?Employers hired children because they were cheap and relatively malleable

Three young boys with shovels standing in doorway of a Fort Worth & Denver train car.

A textile mill. Sweeper and doffer boys in Lancaster Cotton Mills, Lancaster, S.C.

Photograph by Lewis Wickes Hine, December 1, 1908.

Richard Pierce, age 14.

A Western Union Telegraph Co. messenger. Nine months in service, works from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Smokes and visits houses of prostitution.

Wilmington, Delaware.

Pastimes and Vices

Photographer: Lewis Hine

Two factory girls protesting child labor (by calling it child slavery) New York City Labor Day parade, May 1, 1909

Edgar Gardner Murphy

(1869 - 1913)

The National Child Labor Committee(1904 - Present)

In 1902 an Episcopalian minister, the Reverend Edgar Gardner Murphy, founded the Alabama Child Labor Committee.

The next year representatives of thirty-two New York City settlement houses formed the New York Child Labor Committee.

These groups collaborated on August 15, 1904, to establish the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC), which was incorporated in 1907 with a board that included prominent Progressive reformers.

Progressive Social Reform:Redefining “Social Problems” and their Solutions

• Shift from blaming the poor to emphasizing social injustice, from individual charity to social reform.

• Shift from “pauperism” (assuming that poverty arises from poor character and morally incorrect behavior) to regarding the poor as the victims of social arrangements and social forces.

• Shift to a belief that modern science, methods of efficiency, and social planning could be forces of positive social change, if wielded with the right intentions and not left in the hands of a wealthy elite.

• Shift from random charitable “giving’” to a more systemic, rationalized, and professional approach to solving social problems.

• Shift from an emphasis on private philanthropy to solutions that required publicity, political lobbying, legislative intervention, and professional expertise.

• Connecting reforming purpose with the latest methods of scientific inquiry, such as the Pittsburgh Survey.

• Shift from amateur philanthropists towards trained professionals (social scientists, social workers, community health/sanitation personnel) using scientific methods, publicity and political organizing to achieve social change.

Hull House Social Worker and Clients, 1890’s

Hull House Map of Nationalities, Chicago, 1893

Lillian Wald(1867 – 1940)

- Henry Street Settlement- Community Nursing- Co- Founder, NAACP- U.S. Children’s Bureau- Women’s League for Peace and Freedom

Edward T. Devine(1867 – 1948)

- Economist- The Pittsburgh Survey

Jane Addams(1860-1935)

Hull House

Florence Kelley(1859 – 1932)

- Founder National Consumers League- Chief Factory Inspector, Illinois- Co-founder, NAACP"Florence is the toughest customer in the reform riot, the finest rough-and-tumble fighter for the good life for others” - Jane Addams

The National Child Labor Committee (NCLC) Board of Directors

Lewis Wickes Hine1874-1940

John Dewey(1859 - 1952)

“Social Betterment” by Teaching Compassionate Seeing

“We must contrast the evolutionary character of education to those reforms that are transitory and futile, which rest simply upon the enactment of law, or the threatening of certain penalties, or upon changes in mechanical or outward arrangements.”

“We must restore the continuity between the refined and intensified forms of experience that are works of art and the everyday events, doings, and sufferings that are universally recognized to constitute experience.”

Lewis Hine photographing

How did he do it?

Featuring the original photo captions by Lewis W. Hine

http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/index.html

Newboys under the Brooklyn Bridge at Midnight

Can't read. Doesn't know his A,B,C's.

Said, "Yes I want to learn but can't when I work all the time." Been in the mills 4 years, 3 years in the Olympia Mill.

Furman Owens

12 years old.Columbia, S.C.

Adolescent girls from Bibb Mfg. Co. in Macon, Georgia.

Doffer boys. Macon, Georgia.

Children in the Mills

A general view of spinning room, Cornell Mill. Fall River, Massachusetts.

A moment's glimpse of the outer world. Said she was 11 years old. Been working over a year.

Rhodes Mfg. Co. Lincolnton, North Carolina.

Some boys and girls were so small they had to climb up on to the spinning frame to mend broken threads and to put back the empty bobbins.

Bibb Mill No. 1. Macon, Georgia.

One of the spinners in Whitnel Cotton Mill. She was 51 inches high. Has been in the mill one year. Sometimes works at night. Runs 4 sides - 48 cents a day. When asked how old she was, she hesitated, then said, "I don't remember," then added confidentially, "I'm not old enough to work, but do just the same." Out of 50 employees, there were ten children about her size. Whitnel, North Carolina.

The overseer said apologetically, "She just happened in." She was working steadily. The mills seem full of youngsters who "just happened in" or "are helping sister."

Newberry, South Carolina.

Jo Bodeon, a back-roper in the mule room at Chace Cotton Mill. Burlington, Vermont.

The Newsies

Text

“As to the little boys in industry, we have an old assumption that the boy we see on the sidewalk will some day be the Marshall Field or John Wanamaker of his generation. There is no foundation for that. Marshall Field was never a newsboy, and I do not know that John Wanamaker ever was one. We have no evidence that street boys grow into heroes of commerce. We are really encouraging them to be beggars and thieves when we allow them to keep change which they should return if they are ever going to be business men.”

- Florence Kelley

The “Newsies”

A small newsie downtown on a Saturday afternoon. St. Louis, Missouri.

A group of newsies selling on the Capitol steps. Tony, age 8, Dan, 9, Joseph, 10, and John, age 11.

Washington, D.C.

Tony Casale, age 11, been selling 4 years. Sells sometimes until 10 p.m. His paper told me the boy had shown him the marks on his arm where his father had bitten him for not selling more papers. He (the boy) said, "Drunken men say bad words to us."

Hartford, Connecticut.

Out after midnight selling extras. There were many young boys selling very late. Youngest boy in the group is 9 years old. Harry, age 11, Eugene and the rest were a little older.

Washington, D.C.

Newsboy asleep on stairs with papers.

Jersey City, New Jersey.

Michael McNelis, age 8, a newsboy [seen with photographer Hine]. This boy has just recovered from his second attack of pneumonia. Was found selling papers in a big rain storm.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Francis Lance, 5 years old, 41 inches high. He jumps on and off moving trolley cars at the risk of his life.

St. Louis, Missouri.

The Child Miners

At the close of day. Waiting for the cage to go up. The cage is entirely open on two sides and not very well protected on the other two, and is usually crowded like this. The small boy in front is Jo Puma. South Pittston, Pennsylvania.

Joe Puma

View of the Ewen Breaker of the Pennsylvania Coal Co. The dust was so dense at times as to obscure the view. This dust penetrated the utmost recesses of the boys' lungs. A kind of slave-driver sometimes stands over the boys, prodding or kicking them into obedience. South Pittston, Pennsylvania.

Noon hour in the Ewen Breaker, Pennsylvania Coal Co. South Pittston, Pennsylvania.

Work injury to coal mine breaker boy: loss of an eye.

“Luther Watson of Kentucky is 14 years old. His right arm was cut off by a veneering saw in a box factory in Cincinnati a month ago ... November 1908.”

“He worked in the bung factory. He walked past one of the machines, and it got switched on somehow and his arm got twisted up in it. It was terrible. His parents were dead when he had the injury. “

Questions for Instructional Activities around Child Labor

• Do these children look "young" as most children today do?

• Why did employers hire young children?

• Why did their parents let them work?

• Describe the kind of work they did. How long they work in a day?

• What are their working conditions. Where did they work? When did they work? Do children today face any dangers that the children in these photographs faced when working?

• How do you think adults treated children on the job?

• How much did they get paid?

• What might have been done to make their life better?

Breaker boys, Hughestown Borough Pennsylvania Coal Company. One of these is James Leonard, another is Stanley Rasmus. Pittston, Pennsylvania.

Breaker boys. Smallest is Angelo Ross. Pittston, Pennsylvania.

Harley Bruce, a young coupling-boy at Indian Mine. He appears to be 12 or 14 years old and says he has been working there about a year. It is hard work and dangerous. Near Jellico, Tennessee.

A young driver in the Brown Mine. Has been driving one year. Works 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily.

Brown, West Virginia.

The Factory

View of the Scotland Mills, showing boys who work in mill. Laurinburg, North Carolina.

9 p.m. in an Indiana Glass Works.

Midnight at the glassworks

Day scene. Wheaton Glass Works. Boy is Howard Lee. His mother showed me the family record in Bible which gave his birth as July 15, 1894. 15 years old now, but has been in glass works two years and some nights. Millville, New Jersey.

Rob Kidd, one of the young workers in a glass factory. Alexandria, Virginia.

Robert Kidd

Some of the young knittersLondon Hosiery Mills. London, Tennessee.

Young cigar makers in Engelhardt & Co. Three boys looked under 14. Labor leaders told me in busy times many small boys and girls were employed. Youngsters all smoke. Tampa, Florida.

Oyster shuckers working in a canning factory. All but the very smallest babies work. Began work at 3:30 a.m. and expected to work until 5 p.m. The little girl in the center was working. Her mother said she is "a real help to me." Dunbar, Louisiana.

The Food Industry

Shrimp pickers, including little 8-year-old Max on the right. Biloxi, Mississippi.

Johnnie, a 9-year-old oyster shucker. Man with pipe behind him is a Padrone who has brought these people from Baltimore for four years. He is the boss of the shucking shed.

Dunbar, Louisiana.

Cutting fish in a sardine cannery. Large sharp knives are used with a cutting and sometimes chopping motion. The slippery floors and benches and careless bumping into each other increase the liability of accidents. "The salt water gits into the cuts and they ache," said one boy. Eastport, Maine.

Hiram Pulk, age 9, working in a canning company. "I ain't very fast only about 5 boxes a day. They pay about 5 cents a box," he said. Eastport, Maine.

Camille Carmo, age 7, and Justine, age 9. The older girl picks about 4 pails a day. Rochester, Mass.

Agricultural Labor

Three boys, one of 13 yrs., two of 14 yrs., picking shade-grown tobacco on Hackett Farm. The "first picking" necessitates a sitting posture. Buckland, Connecticut.

Six-year-old Warren Frakes. Mother said he picked 41 pounds yesterday "An I don't make him pick; he picked some last year." Has about 20 pounds in his bag. Comanche County, Oklahoma.

Twelve-year-old Lahnert boy topping beets. The father, mother, and two boys (9 and 12 yrs.) expect to make $700 in about 2 months time in the beet work. "The boys can keep up with me all right, and all day long," the father said. Begin at 6 a.m. and work until 6 p.m. with hour off at noon. Fort Collins, Colorado.

Norris Luvitt. Been picking 3 years in berry fields near Baltimore.

Struggling Families

A Jewish family and neighbors working until late at night sewing garters. This happens several nights a week when there is plenty of work. The youngest work until 9 p.m. The others until 11 p.m. or later. On the left is Mary, age 7, and 10-year-old Sam, and next to the mother is a 12-year-old boy. On the right are Sarah, age 7, next is her 11 year old sister, 13-year-old brother. Father is out of work and also helps make garters. New York City.

A family working in the Tifton Cotton Mill. Four smallest children not working yet. The mother said she earns $4.50 a week and all the children earn $4.50 a week. Husband died and left her with 11 children. Two of them went off and got married. The family left the farm two years ago to work in the mill. Tifton, Georgia.

Picking nuts in dirty basement. The dirtiest imaginable children were pawing over the nuts and eating lunch on the table. Mother had a cold and blew her nose frequently (without washing her hands) and the dirty handkerchiefs reposed comfortably on table close to the nuts and nut meats. The father picks now. New York City.

Proposed Solution Immediate Result Final Outcome

Compulsory Education: Increase the number of years of compulsory education

Americanize immigrant children by teaching them English and giving them “correct” values by keeping them out of the workplace.

Compulsory education did not solve the problem because schools, bowing to pressure from manufacturers, established night schools for working children.

State Child Labor Laws:Labor unions and reformers also lobbied for laws restricting the hours a child could work

Some states passed child labor laws:

By 1900 eight states prohibited children from working at night. Most northern states mandated a 10-hour day and 60-hour week for children. Many states also established a minimum age for industrial work. By 1912 only nine states had laws prohibiting the employment of children under the age of 14 in factories; under the age of 16 in mines, and required an 8 hour work day for children ages 14 to 16.

Minimum-age laws had little effect: employers did not inquire too closely into the ages of children who worked for them and children often lied about their age, out of economic necessity to work and help support their families. Wages were so low that a family could not subsist on just one or two salaries.

Federal Child Labor Law:Lax or nonexistent enforcement of state laws regulating child labor led progressive reformers to seek a federal child labor law.

Keating-Owen Act (1917):Prohibited the sale in interstate commerce of goods manufactured by children in the United States

Hammer vs. Daghart (1918):

The Supreme Court struck down the Keating-Owen Act as unconstitutional. The court challenge was made by the Southern Cotton Manufacturers. The court ruled that Keating-Owen was an unwarranted exercise of the federal government’s powers and an invasion of state rights.

A Brief History of Child Labor Reform Efforts

What Hine and the NCLC missed.

Juvenile Prisoners working the fieldsAlabama

Convict wagons like these in Pitt County, North Carolina, 1910, were used across the South to transport and house African-Americans, many of them juveniles ages 12 to 6, compelled to work in road gangs, lumber camps, and farms.

Young prisoner tied around a pickax for punishment in a Georgia labor camp

What is the rest of the story?

Recovering the Life Stories of Lewis Hine’s Child Laborers(or, the Magic of Ancestry.com)

The Breaker Boys

Day scene. Wheaton Glass Works. Boy is Howard Lee. His mother showed me the family record in Bible which gave his birth as July 15, 1894. 15 years old now, but has been in glass works two years and some nights. Millville, New Jersey.

Occupation: plumberOccupation: plumber

Harley Bruce, a young coupling-boy at Indian Mine. He appears to be 12 or 14 years old and says he has been working there about a year. It is hard work and dangerous. Near Jellico, Tennessee.

Occupation: Laborer, Coal Mine

“Luther Watson of Kentucky is 14 years old. His right arm was cut off by a veneering saw in a box factory in Cincinnati a month ago ... November 1907.”

Luther Thomas Watson was born on July 09, 1892, in Grant County, Kentucky. His parents were John and Lucy Powell Watson. He married Mabel Celia Freeman on April 18, 1914, in Ohio. Luther passed away on July 27, 1961, at the age of 69, and wife Mabel died on June 25, 1972, at the age of 75.

I found Luther in the 1920 census. He was living in Covington, Kentucky, with his wife and two girls. His occupation was listed as a telegraph messenger. In the 1930 census, he was listed as living in Elsmere, Kentucky, with two additional girls, and he was employed as a switch tender for the railroad.

Mabel and Luther Watsonand grandsons, 1938

Mabel and Luther Watson, 1940’sDaughters:

Della and Nola Watson, 1940’s

Breaker boys, Hughestown Borough Pennsylvania Coal Company. One of these is James Leonard, another is Stanley Rasmus. Pittston, Pennsylvania.

Occupation: Linotyper, Printing Office

Occupation: City Policeman

The Child Miners

At the close of day. Waiting for the cage to go up. The cage is entirely open on two sides and not very well protected on the other two, and is usually crowded like this. The small boy in front is Jo Puma. South Pittston, Pennsylvania.

Joe Puma

Occupation: coal miner

Rob Kidd, one of the young workers in a glass factory. Alexandria, Virginia.

Robert Kidd

Occupation: Helper, glass factory

Robert Ellis KiddBirth: 29 Sept 1898Death: 30 May 1960 in Alexandria, VA

Parents:

Joseph Montgomery Kidd (1854 - 1932 )Ada Elica Buffrey (1863-1903)

Spouses:

Eleanor Blanche Mitchel (1907 - 2009)1907 – 2009

Occupation: Clerk, Oil Company Office

Michael McNelis, age 8, a newsboy [seen with photographer Hine]. This boy has just recovered from his second attack of pneumonia. Was found selling papers in a big rain storm.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

BIRTH: 15 Sep 1901 - Philadelphia, United StatesPARENTS: NoneMARRIAGE: 1953 - Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne, PennsylvaniaDEATH: 15 Apr 1971 - Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne, Pennsylvania,SPOUSE: Gertrude Costello Thomas McNelis (1897-1988)

Michael McNelis

Lest we forget.Lest we lose.