This is the last post (at leasts for now!) about the work of Lewis Wickes Hine.
We’ve looked at the various conditions where the children were working and you could tell when Hine believed the conditions to be deplorable–though possibly essential to the families’ survival.
That is not the case here. In these photographs, Hine’s rage was out full-force, and it was directed at the parents and caretakers. No comments from me on these photos, as Hine said all that needs to be said, eloquently.
Lewis Hine, self-portrait, 1930. From Wikipedia.
Nov 1914. A menace to Society. The Padgett family. The entire family including the mother totally illiterate. No one could read or write. The mother does mill work some. Alice, 17 years has steady job. Makes from $5 to $6 a week. Alfred, 13 years now, worked here when he was 12, and in other mills before that. Makes $4 a week. Recently crippled by getting his hand caught in the cogs of a spinning machine. Richard just reached 11. Been working here 1 year; began when he was 10. Makes $2.40 a week. “The work runs him down too.” William, 6 years old, nearly blind. Lizzie, 5 years old.
Home in utter neglect; filthy and bare. When investigator called the mother had been gone about an hour, leaving a roomer’s 3 months old baby in the cradle before an open fire on the hearth, and only two children 5 and 6 years old – one nearly blind, playing around. She came back and fed them a lot of cheap candy. What will Society reap from its neglect of this family? Shaw Cotton Mills. Location: South Weldon, North Carolina.
Hine, Lewis Wickes, 1874-1940, photographer. (LOC)
October 6, 1921. The “East Side” of Pocahontas Country. The Aldrich home, – Buckeye, near Marlinton, W. Va. This is one of the worst homes in the county. Note the duck-coop, made out of an old trunk, – in front yard.
Mother said “The colt kicked the winders out.” She is a no-‘count mountaineer from Kentucky and her husband is a shiftless farmer who has let this farm run down to worthlessness. His father ran a prosperous farm here and owned hundreds of acres but the son has run thro[ugh] it all. Typical of worst conditions in the country. Oct. 6, 1921. Location: Pocahontas County–Marlinton, West Virginia / Photo by L.W. Hine.
Hine, Lewis Wickes, 1874-1940, photographer (LOC)
Sometime, I’d like to cover his photographs from the Great War and from Ellis Island, which are excellent and very different in tone and content. But that is for a future post!
old spirituals 
Child labor is rooted in history. Children had to work on farms to help support the family. (In “modern” America, children on farms are permitted to drive farm vehicles, including trucks, at an earlier age than town and city children.)
In The Middle Ages, a system called “apprenticeship” was developed by craft guilds and local governments to train needed craftsmen. An apprenticeship was typically given to young boys, though young women did apprentice as seamstresses, cooks, etc.
When the Industrial Revolution created the need for factory workers to produce goods in a larger quantities, it was not thought to be outlandish to employ young boys and girls in factories. Wages were low for all workers. The norm was to have a large family; that resulted in the need to have as many family members working as possible for the family’s subsistence. Unfortunately, health and safety of workers, young and old, were not of concern. Profit was the primary motivation and objective.
It was that backdrop that eventually resulted in the rise of the AFL/CIO and other unions. Some employers, e.g. Henry Ford, decided to pay a higher wage to keep production workers happy and not vote for a union. Ford Motors employees eventually did vote in the United Autoworkers Union.
In 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act addressed child labor, among other employment conditions. The FLSA specified that non-agricultural jobs cannot employ children under the age of 14. Different age ranges above 14 are permitted to work other types of jobs (non-hazardous) for longer hours per day.
Many laws have been passed with specific exemptions applicable to children. As much as society claims to care about children, the concern is often merely symbolism over substance.
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Jax! There you are. I’ve missed your comments!
My great-grandfather worked hard to bring a union into the coal mines, and those were violent times. Regarding the child labor, Mary, Judy, and I were just saying on the first post in this series that we may have gone too far in protecting children from work. Of course nobody is suggesting 12-hour days in the mills or the fields, but learning how to do things and having actual responsibilities is not a terrible thing. Or at least it’s preferable to spending hours gaming every day.
100% agree that many of the laws and nearly all of the outrage are performative!
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I believe we are making the same point. My intention was to offer why I think children became an acceptable form of labor. Like many things, there are those who abuse the practice. During my tenure as a company labor relations manager, I experienced first hand the good and bad that unions and management are capable of doing. Most of it was good.
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Definitely agree! 😊
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