Least we forget what Labor Day is really about: Lewis Hine, a real hero of Labor Day
The dark-haired girl on the right with the impish smile, her name was Eddie Lou, she was about 8 years old when this photo was taken in 1909. The picture was taken at the Tifton Cotton Mill, Tifton, Georgia. The girls worked there.
The photograph was taken by Lewis Hine, who visited factories such as this mill and took photographs of the children who worked there as evidence for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC). At times, Hines had to disguise himself, even posing as a bible salesman in order to get on company grounds because as a photographer he was prohibited.
"In the early 1900s, Hine traveled across the United States to photograph preteen boys descending into dangerous mines, shoeless 7-year-olds selling newspapers on the street and 4-year-olds toiling on tobacco farms. Though the country had unions to protect laborers at that time — and Labor Day, a federal holiday to honor them — child labor was widespread and widely accepted. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that around the turn of the century, at least 18 percent of children between the ages of 10 and 15 were employed," according to the Washington Post.
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| Child laborers in glasswork. Indiana, 1908. Library of Congress Many industries hid the fact that they employed children. They took advantage of poor families, such as Eddie Lou's family. Eddie Lou's father had died and left her mother with 11 children and no income. Her mother was forced to work at the cotton mill for $4.50 a week. Eddie Lou and four siblings also worked there and they were all together paid $4.50 as well. Eddie Lou and her youngest siblings would eventually be sent to an orphanage because her mother wasn't able to provide for them. |
Hine had been a teacher, but he left the teaching profession when he realized a camera could be used as an educational tool for social reform. He became a photographer for the NCLC to help change the laws and end child labor.
It was sometimes a dangerous job, and Hine was frequently threatened by factory police and foremen. He visited factories, sweat shops, and other businesses touted as the pillars of the community. He would find the young children, like Eddie Lou, working at these places, toiling their childhood away.
Hine also photographed immigrants at Ellis Island at a time when popular opinion of immigrants wasn't good. According to The Tenement Museum, which preserves and interprets the history of immigration, Hine "sought to humanize immigrants, to make their journeys, their wants, their struggles indistinguishable from any American".
Hines' photographs would be instrumental in changing the child labor laws in the United States. If it were not for him and his photographs, industries would have been able to hide the immorality of child labor and would have been able to continue exploiting children. If it were not for him, children today, instead of enjoying a three day weekend, would probably be working.
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| Adolescent Girl, a Spinner, in a Carolina Cotton Mill(1908) Princeton University Art Museum |
“It was Lewis Hine who made sure that millions of children are not working today,” said Jeffrey Newman, a former president of the New York-based committee."
According to the Washington Post, Though there had been investigations that attempted to expose these circumstances in the past, the industry simply dismissed those reports as — the term they would use today is — ‘fake news,’ ” said Hugh Hindman, a historian of child labor. “When Hine comes along and supplements the investigations with pictures, it creates a set of facts that can’t be denied anymore.”
Hine didn't have to do what he did, yet he did. At the time, he was one of the most hated men in America because of his photographs. He would be threatened with violence and even death. But, he felt it was his moral obligation to do what needed to be done, what some refused to do, what others were not capable of doing. Some inferred that it was unpatriotic to do what he did. Others, however, would realize later that what he did was one of the most patriotic things you can do.
According to the Washington Post, back then "there was no such thing as going viral in the early 1900s. The spread of Hine’s photos and the reform that they inspired was extremely slow. The Fair Labor Standards Act, the federal law that would prohibit most employment of minors, wasn’t passed until 1938. Hine died two years later — long before his work would be recognized for the impact it had."
People would forget about Lewis Hine and the work he did. He died at the age of 66.
But his photographs remain a reminder and a testament to his work, to his dedication to do what was right.
