Lewis Wickes Hine Social Photography

As early as the 1830’s Child Labor in the U.S. was already starting to arise. In rural communities child labor on the farm was common, children being employed in factories or mills didn’t seem to be much of a concern to people. In 1830 laws were passed prohibiting children to be hired in an industrial or factory type setting. By 1800, some states passed a large amount of laws prohibiting child labor. Often times these laws did not apply to immigrants so they were often abused on the immigrants which lead to the immigrants living in poor places working for long hours for very little pay. Immigrant or not, child labor back in the 1800’s was a way of life.

Throughout history, children have always worked, either as apprentices or servants. However, child labor reached a whole new scale during the time period of the Industrial Revolution. Throughout the time frame of late 1800s-early 1900s, children worked long hours in dangerous factory conditions for very little wages. They were considered useful as laborers because their small stature allowed them to be cramped into smaller spaces, and they could be paid less for their services. Many worked to help support their families, and by doing so, they forwent their education. Numerous nineteenth century reformers and labor groups sought to restrict child labor and to improve working conditions.

Throughout the 1700’s and the early 1800’s child labor was a major issue in American society. Children have always worked for family businesses whether it was an agricultural farming situation or working out of a family business in some type of workplace. This was usually seen in families of middle or lower class because extra help was needed to support the family. Child labor dramatically changed when America went through the Industrial Revolution. When America’s industrial revolution came into play, it opened a new world to child labor. Children were now needed to work in factories, mills, and mines. These were not ordinary jobs for young children, these jobs required much time, effort, and hard work. “American

In Chapter 8 of After the Fact in the article, “The Mirror with a Memory” by James West Davidson and Mark Lytle, the authors tell the story of photography and of a man names Jacob Riis. Riis came from Scandinavia as a young man and moved to the United States. Riis firsthand experienced the bad conditions in the heart of the slums of New York. He worked from place to place, doing odd jobs until he found a job as a police reporter for the New York Tribune. Riis lived in a slum called “The Bend.” When he became a reporter, Riis aspired to make people see the awful conditions of “The Bend.” Riis was continuously disappointed because his articles did not receive much attention or sympathy he was looking for. He then vowed to write a book called

In 1900, children as young as nine years old were once expected to work sixteen hours a day in harsh conditions. They were useful because of their small size and the owners being able to pay low wages. Child labor laws exist because brave men, women, and children fought for these rights. The conditions of the children’s working environment caused Lewis Hine and the newsies to act upon it.

The road to fair and equal child labor laws was definitely not an easy one, nor was it a quick one. Throughout the 1800’s, it was normal to see school aged children working 50-70 hour weeks, leaving out the time to get an education, socialize,

In the late 1700's and early 1800's, power-driven machines began to replace hand labor for the production of nearly all manufactured items. Factories began to pop up everywhere, first in England and then the United States was soon to follow in their footsteps. There were numerous factories and to meet the needs of the owners of these factories they had to get creative and find people of all walks of life to put to work. Sadly, their solution to the in demand workers was putting children, sometimes as young as three years old, to work. Operating the machines did not require adult strength, and children would work for much less than adults would. By the mid-1800's, child labor was a major problem.

Unfortunately, it was declared unconstitutional, because Congress wasn’t able to regulate local labor circumstances. If it had passed, the act would have freed kids from child labor, but only in the kinds on industries that did commerce at an interstate level.4 Even though the Keating-Owen Act was declared unconstitutional, it opened the door for many questions to be asked about the conditions in which children were living and laboring. It led to the National Child Labor Committee to hire a photographer, Lewis Hine. They sent him across the country to take photos of the children and to report on the conditions of child labor.5 Social reformers saw the kind of negative effect child labor had on these children, and they condemned the practice, which led to a second bill being passed as part of the Revenue Act of

In the early 1900’s many young children had to work in factories and mills to help provide for their families. These children often died due to exhaustion and malnutrition. I do not feel that children were an acceptable source of labor, but I think I can understand why some kids had to work and why some employers would hire them. Some families may have not been able to afford to send their children to school because the money their kids made from working was important part of their families income. It probably would have been a hard decision for parents to send their children to work because they knew the bad work conditions of factories and mills. Employers would have hired children because they did have to pay them as much as adults at the

Throughout the American Industrial Revolution, child labor in industries such as textiles, agriculture, mining, manufacturing, laboring, street work, and domestic work was endemic in the United States. Several factors, including mechanization, urbanization, industrialization, poverty, labor shortages, and lack of regulation were the primary causes for this increase in child labor. Children, as young as three years old, worked from sunrise to sunset in factories, mines, fields, and mills where conditions were excruciating. The arduous work resulted in myriad deleterious effects, namely, afflictive injuries, pitiful deaths, and bleak futures. In order to curtail the abusive conditions, numerous people championed the rights of child laborers and ultimately achieved their concordant goal of gaining federal regulation of minimum employment ages, permissible types of jobs, and duration of work hours for youths.

Child Labor enslaved, injured, and separated children during the 1800s and the 1900s in the United States of America. The United States survey in 1870, forever changed the opinions people had on child labor. The survey reported 750,000 child workers under the age of fifteen; this information did not include children who assisted their family’s business or helped out on the family farm. By 1911, the rates of children labor seemed to rapidly increase when over two million children under the age of sixteen worked beyond twelve-hour shifts for six days a week. These American children worked long hours in corrupt and hazardous conditions to bring home diminutive wages.

Child labor has been an issue we Americans have tolerated with for an extended period of time; longer than we should have. At the time of Kelley presenting her speech, July 22 1905, she stated we had “two million children under the age of sixteen years” who were part of the working class. This statistic illustrates our dire need to decrease and stop the use of children as workers in dangerous places like factories. Kelley states these children are as young as “six and seven” to “sixteen;” which only helps emphasize her point that young children, our futures, do not need to be put in these situations. She helps proves this throughout ter speech by appealing to our emotional, and logical aspects and then also establishing and presenting her credibility.

Child labor becomes a major problem in the late-1700s and mid-1800s, the number of children younger than 16 years of age is working in the industry, leaving their homes to work in factories and mines which exposed them a dangerous and unhealthy conditions. Individuals and business viewed children as an affordable, achievable and renewable resource with a low wage. Even though many States or countries passed laws prohibiting child labor. The worst kind of child labor still rampantly exists in our country; despite the continuous fights against it because laws were not enforced enough that child labor still exists today.

Growing up as a child, no one expects a young one to be out in the fields, in factories or even being a slave working their precious lives away. During one of America’s toughest generations, children were seen doing some of the same jobs and tasks that adults were having to take on. Making less than twenty to twenty five cents a day, children’s lives were at risk for nothing. As time went on, child labor laws were enacted to save children from abuse, neglect, serious injury and even death in the work place. As we sit in history classes, tour museums and take upon us the emotional and sometimes gruesome images from this time period, no words can describe how awful it must have been for one involved. But on the other hand, there was a positive side to the growth and construction of the American Nation through the New York City skyline. As one wraps up inside each photo, they most of the time do not realize who truly has captured them. Born Lewis Wickes Hine in Oshkosh, Wisconsin on Sept. 26, 1874, Hine was best known for his photography to reach prestigious goals of social reform. Producing some of the most emotional and life changing photographs of the time, Hine is to be considered a hero for many of many

For some, a picture is just a beautiful work of art, but for Lewis Hine photography was a way to communicate a message to the world. When Hine was taught the photographic process, it was still being established. This being said, photojournalism was also just evolving as a method to visually communicate information. In an effort to better his photography skills, Hine began to photograph the immigrants of Ellis Island. He was very adamant about social reform and reflected this in his work. Lewis Hine’s captivating photos inspired social change in America for the less fortunate.