Child Labor Reform Photographs

Objective Assessment


As you view each photograph take note about what you see. (note people, background, objects) Pretend you were describing the image to someone who could not see it. Try to avoid making judgments.

Where are these children? List any clues relating to their surroundings.
Describe any tools or objects you see.
Describe their clothing. What do their clothes reveal about their work?

Subjective Assessment


What questions do you have about each of these photographs?
Based on your observations, list three things you might infer about the lives of these children. (Be sure to consider Hine's notes about the photographs when considering this.


Photograph A In this photograph you can see a short young girl who worked in a mill and she does not even remember her own age. She looks scared. She also makes little pay.

Photograph B In this photograph it shows young girls who are young, tired,and angry workers.

Photograph C In this photograph there is a very young girl who is an assistant to other cotton mill workers. The overseer does not want people to know that they are letting youngsters work in a mill.

Photograph D In this photograph there is a young boy selling news papers and nobody is buying them on a busy saturday morning he is sad that he is making no money.

Photograph E In this photograph there is a bunch of young boys who are working in a coal factory like slaves getting kicked so they keep working and not stop. The dust fills up there lungs and harms them.

Photograph F In this photograph there are a group of young men who are working in a crowded glass factory making bottles. They are working at night.

Photograph G In this photograph there are a bunch of families who's jobs are to take the meat out of oysters and put the meat in cans.They are expected to be at work from 3:30am to 5pm. All but the babies work any where from 2yrs. and up work.

Photograph H In this photograph there are children on the night shift going to work at 6 p.m. on a cold, dark December day. They do not come out again until 6 a.m. When they went home the next morning they were all drenched by a heavy, cold rain and had few or no wraps. Two of the smaller girls with three other sisters work on the night shift and support a big, lazy father who complains he is not well enough to work. He loafs around the country store. The oldest three of these sisters have been in the mill for 7 years, and the two youngest, two years. The latter earns 84 cents a night. Whitnel, N.C.