Hughestown, PennsylvaniaBreaker boys, No. 9 BreakerRooms full of small boys picking slate all day. Where were their fathers, and their schools?The Pennsylvania Coal Company's Number 9 Breaker; Lewis Hine photographed its breaker boys, including the smallest, Angelo Ross, in 1911.
Photo: Lewis Hine · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons
Child Labor & Repopulation · Huntsville, United States (approx.)
Lewis Hine in Huntsville, Alabama
The open question
Look at the ages in the caption. Who signed off on that?
On the record
Lewis Hine's caption for the National Child Labor Committee: "Coming out at noon, Merrimac Mills. All workers, even the boys at the side of the gate. Huntsville, Ala. -".
Sources
More from Child Labor & Repopulation
Hughestown, PennsylvaniaBreaker boys, No. 9 BreakerRooms full of small boys picking slate all day. Where were their fathers, and their schools?The Pennsylvania Coal Company's Number 9 Breaker; Lewis Hine photographed its breaker boys, including the smallest, Angelo Ross, in 1911.
Manchester, New HampshireAmoskeag MillyardThe biggest mill on earth, staffed partly by children. Who were they and where did they come from?It grew into the largest cotton textile plant in the world. Hine photographed small boys working there in May 1909.
North Pownal, VermontAddie Card, North Pownal millA girl who might be ten, working a spinning frame. Who signed off on that?Hine's 1910 photo of Addie Card, a 12-year-old spinner. His note says girls in the mill said she was ten.
Macon, GeorgiaBibb Mill No. 1A mill making big profits with children on the floor. Was it the same story everywhere?Hine photographed doffer boys and other children at Bibb Mill No. 1 in January 1909, noting the company's profits on his labels.