The Photos That Shocked America:
The Horrors of Child Labor Exposed by Lewis Hine
Let Children Be Children
The Great Depressison
In the early 1900s, 18 percent of the workforce were children. The Great Depression caused more adults to be out of jobs. Factories, mills, and mine jobs were reserved for for out-of-work adults instead of children. The Great Depression contributed to getting child labor laws passed.
Unemployed men queued outside a depression soup kitchen opened in Chicago, February 1931, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938
“Child Labor Standards for the Nation’s Children.” National Archives, Records of the Children’s Bureau, 1941.
Child Labor Committee used Hine's photographs to inspire people to take action against child labor. Mary Norton, New Jersey Congresswoman, spearheaded the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, which included outlawing child labor, workweek regulations, and minimum wage requirements.
“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, 1909
Childhood Becomes Important
An Amendment to the Constitution is Needed to Give the United States Power to Safeguard the Child Life of the Nation, circa 1920VCU Libraries Gallery.
In the early 1900s, parents raised their children with the idea that play should be a productive activity that was a way for children to prepare for adulthood. Psychologists presented the idea of unstructured play for children to learn physical and emotional skills. It was the child’s job to learn to play.
"The right of the child were: normal birth, physical protection, joyous infancy, useful education and an ever fuller inheritance of the accumulated riches of civilizations."
-Edward Devine, Charity Organization Society
Focused Education
In 1930 every state had some type of compulsory school law, sending kids back to school. Fifty percent of young adults received a high school diploma. Jobs required more years of education. Employers needed skilled employees due to machinery automation, and adults were better suited for these jobs.
Public and Private High School Graduation Rates, 1910 to 1970, Rearch Gate
Lewis Hine Successful
Three National Child Labor Committee Exhibition Panels, 1913-14, MET Museum
The Child Labor Committee successfully brought an end to child labor by raising awareness of the atrocities companies tried to hide for their profit. As a pioneer of social photography, Lewis Hine’s images shocked thousands of Americans as he exposed the reality of child labor. He was successful because his photographs aroused public sympathy and showed children as more than their economic value. Lewis Hine's photographs showed children as children, not cheap labor.
Header Photo Credit: Ten Year Old Spinner in N. Carolina Cotton Mill, 1908, National Child Labor Committee collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.