Child Laborers Demand Reform: Glass Factories Turn Dark

Lewis Hine was hired by the National Child Labor Committee in 1908 to photograph children working in American factories, mines, and mills. His images of exhausted five-year-olds operating dangerous textile machinery, coal-blackened boys emerging from mine shafts, and girls working sixteen-hour shifts in canneries gave the reform movement the visual evidence it needed. Hine often disguised himself as a fire inspector or Bible salesman to gain access to factories that banned photographers. He meticulously recorded each child's name, age, and working conditions. His photographs appeared in newspapers, pamphlets, and congressional testimony. By the time he stopped photographing child labor around 1917, he had documented over 5,000 working children. The images fueled decades of legislative effort that culminated in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which finally established federal minimum age requirements. An estimated two million children under fifteen were working in American industry when Hine began his project.