Sunday, September 3, 2017

Labor Day 2017

I like this graphic because it puts the symbols of manual labor in Labor Day.

In the early 1900s, Lewis Hine left his job as a schoolteacher to work as a photographer for the National Child Labor Committee, investigating and documenting child labor in the United States. As a sociologist, Hine was an early believer in the power of photography to document work conditions and help bring about change. He traveled the country, going to fields, factories, and mines -- sometimes working undercover -- to take pictures of kids as young as four years old being put to work. Be prepared to see some very powerful archival photos.


My Sunday started out cold and rainy but it is bright, sunny, and very pleasant as I write this post at 5:00 in the afternoon. Enjoy the rest of this long Labor Day weekend. xo

Welcome to the Lewis Hine Project ™, an amazing journey through 100 years of American history. From 1908 until 1924, Lewis Hine took over 5,000 photographs of American child laborers. His compelling pictures helped to persuade legislators and the general public to support laws prohibiting child labor. All the photos, with Mr. Hine’s captions, are posted on the Library of Congress website. Since 2005, I have been identifying the children, tracking down and interviewing living descendants, and writing stories about how the lives of these children turned out. 

7 comments:

Gail, northern California said...

Blessings to Lewis Hine. Do you know if he ever saw the results of his wonderful work put to use to end such child abuse? Actually seeing that poor horse wrenched my heart just as much as those young boys. I wonder what their life expectancy was. Amazing how little we/I know about child labor...something I understand is still going strong in China.

Content in a Cottage said...

Gail, northern California -- Hi Gail. Lewis Hine did some follow-up on the children and recorded them as adults. I think you will enjoy his website:
https://morningsonmaplestreet.com/lewis-hine-project-index-of-stories/lewis-hine-project/

He and his camera did much to make the world a better place.
xo, Rosemary

Content in a Cottage said...

Gail -- I added the new link and a little more information to the blog post. Thanks for making me do it.
xo, Rosemary

Gail, northern California said...

Well, I've just spent the last two hours with Addie Card. What a story! This was my favorite passage:
Piperlea: She told me she was still working at the mill when she got married. She said that the day her grandmother died, she was working at the machines, and she looked up, and her grandmother waved to her from outside. She said, ‘I’ll be right there, Gramma.’ She looked down, finished what she was doing, looked up again, and her grandmother wasn’t there. She told her supervisor about it, and he said that he hadn’t noticed her grandmother there. She went home, and her grandmother was getting her last rites. She thought that, somehow, her grandmother was saying goodbye to her. That gave me goose bumps.

Content in a Cottage said...

Gail, northern California -- Hi Gale, I've spent a lot of time on that site reading about the "ordinary people" captured in Lewis Hine's documentary photographs.
xo, Rosemary

jusaweecatnap said...

Really interesting, sobering.

Content in a Cottage said...

justaweecatnap -- Very sobering indeed. We have come a long way in 100 years.
xo, Rosemary