Working at Home
September 9, 2015
THESE interesting and charming photos taken by the social reformer Lewis Wickes Hines show mostly mothers and children doing paid labor at home in the early 1900s. The photos were used to campaign against home labor, writes Barbara Wells Sarudy.
The captions published with the original photos are not flattering. The text for a photo of what appears to be a contented family picking nuts reads:
“Picking nuts in dirty basement. The dirtiest imaginable children were pawing over the nuts eating lunch on the table, etc. Mother had a cold and blew her nose frequently (without washing her hands) and the dirty handkerchiefs reposed comfortably on table close to the nuts and nut meats. The father picks now. New York City, December 1911”
— Comments —
Bert Perry writes:
Looking at those pictures, it strikes me that what I see is well-fed families wearing clothes in good basic condition (far better than what one sees today) working in a room that features millwork, wallpaper, a working window or two, a table made of hardwood with turned legs along with a number of chairs of the same description, upholstered furniture, and the like. Unlike factories, no whirring gears or belts to pull an unwary person into the machinery, either.
The wages they earned weren’t princely by any means, and not too many of us today would want to live there–they were 300-500 square feet for a family for starters–but you can see why a lot of people in Europe and Asia wanted a piece of the action.
Laura writes:
But don’t you see how dirty that boy’s face is?
Mr. Perry writes:
Because boys who are not subject to child labor do not get dirty faces! :-)
Hurricane Betsy writes:
Those snooty comments accompanying the photos raised my ire. I don’t see any skinny or miserable-looking children. This is your typical marxist trouble making strategy. You would think these kids are at huge, dangeorus noisy machines 18 hours a day. Sorting nuts and crocheting lace – mein Gott, how terrible.
The ultimate result of the busybodies’ efforts was that the children no longer work, but mothers do, outside the home, and overall we are not better off. On the other hand, it created a monstrous society, commenting on which provides “employment” for YOU! LOL! Hope you can take a joke.
