Raising Public Awareness

 

The National Child Labor Committee as opposed to other labor reform groups during the time focused primarily on children. In 1908, Lewis Wickes Hine left his job as a teacher to become a full-time child labor investigator for the NCLC. He photographed children working in horrid conditions all across the country - from canneries, factories, and textile mills to coal mines and dark alleyways. His efforts exposed the working conditions children were subjected to and made the public realize that child labor was a major problem in the country. Some people might have questioned why Hine decided to devote his time to sneaking into desolate factories and mines to photograph children at work, but to Hine, the children were a reflection of his own childhood experience.

 

 

         "I was only fourteen, an orphan, and thin for my age. I worked 15 hours a day at a job too difficult                 for my physique." -Hine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

       

 

 

 

                                                     Lewis Hine with his camera. 

                                                                  Source: http://academic.uprm.edu/laviles/id194.htm

 

 

The kids in the factories, cotton mills, mines, and so on, were giving up their lives for backbreaking work in exchange for only a few pennies a week. Take Breaker Boys for example, who worked in horrendous conditions underground that were quite detrimental to their health. Hine photographed the atrocities the children faced in their workplaces and the National Child Labor Committee published monthly information booklets and pamphlets in order to spread public awareness. It was through the public that the NCLC mainly operated and visualized their goal for change.

            

     

 "If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn't need to lug a camera."   -Hine

 

 

 

 

 

 

                        

 

 

                   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

             

 

 

                

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Graflex camera, the type Lewis Hine photographed children with.                                   Lewis Hine photographing children in a slum. (1910)         

Source: http://dollypythonvintage.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/20130410-121612.jpg                 Source: http://www.geh.org/fm/lwhprints/htmlsrc2/m197810590057_ful.html#topofimage

 

 

Hine was unwelcome in factories for quite obvious reasons, and the owners or foremen would quite often threaten bodily harm. His method of getting many photographs was to disguise himself and sneak in to speak with the children. The interviews he conducted mainly consisted of asking for their name and age, although many of them lied about their age as they were taught to do to keep their job. Many of Hine's reports were published by the National Child Labor Committee and can still be found today, archived in the Tamiment Library in NYU. Lewis Hine's photographs and investigative reports played a major role in spreading public reform and raising awareness. The photographs provided compelling visuals to the public and made many people realize that child labor was indeed a major problem in the country and children were being subjected to work in horrendous conditions. Hine's work increased the demand of the public for child labor reform and strengthened the National Child Labor Committee's argument that child labor was a cause worth fighing for.