Lewis Hine's Photos Influenced 1st Child Labor Laws in US; Mills, Mines, Factories, Farms

Video by Vox, 2019.
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- Teaching With Documents: Photographs of Lewis Hine: Documentation of Child Labor, National Archives

Background: "There is work that profits children, and there is work that brings profit only to employers. The object of employing children is not to train them, but to get high profits from their work." -- Lewis Hine, 1908

After the Civil War, the availability of natural resources, new inventions, and a receptive market combined to fuel an industrial boom. The demand for labor grew, and in the late 19th and early 20th centuries many children were drawn into the labor force. Factory wages were so low that children often had to work to help support their families.

The number of children under the age of 15 who worked in industrial jobs for wages climbed from 1.5 million in 1890, to 2 million in 1910. Businesses liked to hire children because they worked in unskilled jobs for lower wages than adults, and their small hands made them more adept at handling small parts & tools. Children were seen as part of the family economy. Immigrants & rural migrants often sent their children to work, or worked alongside them.

However, child laborers barely experienced their youth. Going to school to prepare for a better future was an opportunity these underage workers rarely enjoyed. As children worked in industrial settings, they began to develop serious health problems. Many child laborers were underweight. Some suffered from stunted growth and curvature of the spine. They developed diseases related to their work environment, such as tuberculosis and bronchitis for those who worked in coal mines or cotton mills. They faced high accident rates due to physical and mental fatigue caused by hard work and long hours.

By the early 1900s many Americans were calling child labor "child slavery" and were demanding an end to it...
https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/hine-photos
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- LEWIS WICKES HINE (Sept. 26, 1874 – Nov. 3, 1940) was an American sociologist and muckraker photographer. His photographs were instrumental in bringing about the passage of the first child labor laws in the US. Hine was born in Oshkosh, Wisc., in 1874. After his father was killed in an accident, Hine began working and saved his money for a college education. He studied sociology at the Univ. of Chicago, Columbia Univ. and New York Univ. He became a teacher in NY City at the Ethical Culture School, where he encouraged his students to use photography as an educational medium.

Hine led his sociology classes to Ellis Island in NY Harbor, photographing the thousands of immigrants who arrived each day. Between 1904 - 1909, Hine took over 200 plates (photos) & came to the realization that documentary photography could be employed as a tool for social change and reform. - Documentary photography: In 1907, Hine became the staff photographer of the Russell Sage Foundation; he photographed life in the steel-making districts and people of Pittsburgh, Pa., for the influential sociological study called The Pittsburgh Survey.

In 1908, Hine became the photographer for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC), leaving his teaching position. Over the next decade, he documented child labor, with a focus on child labor in the Carolina Piedmont, to aid the NCLC's lobbying efforts to end the practice. In 1913, he documented child laborers among cotton mill workers with a series of Francis Galton's composite portraits.

Hine's work for the NCLC was often dangerous. As a photographer, he was frequently threatened with violence or even death by factory police and foremen.

At the time, the immorality of child labor was meant to be hidden from the public. Photography was not only prohibited but also posed a serious threat to the industry. To gain entry to the mills, mines and factories, Hine was forced to assume many guises. At times he was a fire inspector, postcard vendor, bible salesman, or even an industrial photographer making a record of factory machinery.. - Legacy: Hine's photographs supported the NCLC's lobbying to end child labor, and in 1912 the Children's Bureau was created. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 eventually brought child labour in the US to an end...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Hine