Life for Some Children Before Child Labor Laws Was Brutal

Although children had been servants and apprentices throughout most of history, child labor reached new extremes during the Industrial Revolution. Children often worked long hours in dangerous factory conditions for very little money. Children were useful as laborers because their size allowed them to move in small spaces in factories or mines where adults couldn’t fit, children were easier to manage and control and perhaps most importantly, children could be paid less than adults. Appalling but true.

Not-So-Fun-Fact: In 1900, 18% of all American workers were under the age of 16.

In 1908 a true American hero named Lewis Hine picked up his camera and became the photographer for the National Child Labor Committee. For 10-years Lewis traveled across the country documenting child labor despite constant threats from factory owners. At the time the owners wanted to keep the immorality of child labor away from the public’s eye. However, Hine kept it up and never wavered. Sometimes he wore disguises (such as a fire inspector or a bible salesman) to snap pictures and interview the children working at factories or in the streets.  Lewis Hine used his camera as a tool for social commentary and reform, and it worked. Risking his own safety Hine snapped thousands of photographs with one goal – to end child labor. It took years, but in 1938 the Fair Labor Standards Act set national minimum wage and maximum hour standards for workers in interstate commerce and also placed limitations on child labor. Bottom line, next time one of your kids complain about taking out the garbage or mowing the lawn show them these photos. Wild to look at today, but important to know and remember.

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Bobby Lucas, 9-years old. Baltimore, MD.

This is Rosie. She was a 7-year old Oyster Shucker. She worked from dawn to dusk at the Varn & Platt Canning Company in Bluffton, South Carolina.

Rosie Biodo, 10-years old. She picked berries outside Philadelphia, PA.

Unidentified newsboy in Jersey City, NJ.

This is the Arnao Family. The kids are aged 3-11, and worked all day, dawn to dusk.

Lunch break in a furniture factory, Indianapolis, IN.

Vance, 15-years old. His job was to open and close this door in a West Virginia coal mine. He worked in total darkness.

Messenger Boy, Waco, TX. Age unknown.

Ronald Ryan, 7-years old. Houston, TX.

This is Callie Campbell, 11-years old. She was expected to pick 75-125 pounds of cotton a day in Potawotamie County, Oklahoma.

14-year olf Frank Patrick. His legs were cut off by a coal mine motor car in Monongah, West Virginia.

Jimmy Tipple, didn’t know his age. Turkey Knob Mine, MacDonald, WV.

Giles Newsome, 11-year old Mill Worker.

Harold Walker, 5-years old. Comanche County, OK.

10-year old Mac McLinton, Gildersleeve, CT.

Mary Rhoads, 10-years old, catching a glimpse of the outside world. She was a “spinner” at a factory in Lincolnton, NC.

Jennie Camillo, 6-years old. Cranberry picker in Pemberton, NJ.

Three young Newsboys in St. Louis, 1910.

Mary, 4-years old. She was expected to shuck 2-pots of oysters a day in Dunbar, Louisiana.

Sammy Elkington, 8-years old. Fayetteville, TN.

Salvin Nocito, 5-Years Old. Browns Mills, NJ.

Bertha Franklin, a 6-year old oyster shucker from Port Royal, SC.

Age unknown, shucking corn in Dublin, GA.