Photo by Lewis Wickes Hine of 12-year-old Addie Card in a Vermont cotton mill

A READER writes:

While reading your recent entry on child labor and seeing the picture of the child chimney sweep, something began to stir inside my memory. It has taken a few days but my dear Grandma telling me of going to work in the silk mill as soon as she was able has finally bubbled to the top!

I know why it took so long to surface because she talked in such an animated way about how she could hardly wait until she was old enough to work there. She talked about being so excited to finally be bringing in money and to have the joyful responsibility of buying all her own material for her clothes which she made herself starting at age 12.

She worked before and after school and talked of the wet water sprayed down on the silk and how she worked under that spray and how cold it was to walk to school with her head and shoulders wet from the morning work. And mostly she talked with great excitement about finally being able to bring in money and lighten the load of her parents .The cold wet caused her to have a cough which lasted all her 88 years and she went to work in a sewing goods store and then on to college and banking. Can you imagine a twelve year old having that attitude today? The cold, the wet and the cough are only part of the story aren’t they? And 100 years later I sit here with a “chocolate” set in my china cupboard bought by the horrors of “child labor.” She saved any leftover money for a year to finally afford it. She had great pride in it her whole life.

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