Child Labor Reform Movement Essay

1820 Words8 Pages
During the 1900s, America’s children went to school and played. Children spent their summer in the sun by doing outside activities like swimming as well as reading books and enjoying an ice cream break. However, as recently as the early years of this century, there were many poor children that did not live the same lifestyle. These children did not have time to play because they spent their days in factories, coalmines, and in fields. Over two million children in America under the age of 16 had jobs that consisted of twelve hours without stopping. Many children were forced to work because many came from poor families who needed the extra help. The brutal conditions of working long hours and unsafe environments lead some individuals to…show more content…
During 1892, Lewis Hines graduated from high school and worked in an upholstery factory and in the next several years Hine worked several jobs while he was studying stenography, drawing, and sculpture. Hine eventually earned a Master’s degree in education from the University of Chicago. Hine’s first passion was not photography rather it was teaching. His first job was as a teacher at the Ethical Culture School in New York City. Hine’s had a friend named Frank Manny who was the one that convinced Lewis Hine to become the school photographer at the Ethical Culture School, where he gained technical skills (Hine, 11). Lewis Hine started off with a ten-dollar box camera and soon after set up a dark room at school that lead him to start an after school camera club, where he learned about art photography along the students (Freedman, 9). According to the book “Crusade for the Children,” by 1908 Hine spent several years as an amateur, photographing immigrants, Bowery inhabitants, and Lower Eastside hovel children. Soon after Hine quit teaching because he was interested in portraying the difficulty of the poor (Trattner, 105). Hine spent some time working for The survey magazine but later was hired by the National Child Labor Committee by 1906 Hine started work on a freelance basis (105). According to the book “Kids at work,” by 1908, by the time he left the Ethical Culture School,
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