The Working Conditions For Kids Were Subhuman By Today's Standards
The adorable little boy in this colorized photograph from 1916 was taken by noted American sociologist, advocate for social reform, and photographer Lewis Hine. It shows a five-year-old lad named Harold Walker, hard at work on the family’s cotton farm in Oklahoma. Little Harold, along with his six-year-old sister, Jewel, picked 20 to 25 pounds of cotton per day.
This photo, and others by Lewis Hine, helped show the plight of child laborers. (https://www.reddit.com/r/ColorizedHistory/comments/iram12/5year_old_harold_walker_picks_20_to_25_pounds_of/)
The images of the Walker children that Lewis Hine captured in his photographs were used to fuel the debate about child labor in the United States in the early twentieth century.
Who Was Lewis Hine?
Photographer and social reform advocate Lewis Hine. (en.wikipedia.org)
As a young child in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Lewis Hine, who was born in 1874, had to work 13 hours a day for six days a week to help his widowed mother, so he experienced first-hand the horrors of child labor. Hine eventually attended college and became a teacher. He also dabbled in photography. He began to understand that photography could be used to capture the real-life struggles of the poor in America, particularly the children living in poverty. His work photographing immigrants arriving on Ellis Island earned him much acclaim. He was asked to work as a freelance photographer for the National Child Labor Committee. This organization’s goal was to advocate for national child labor laws.
Child Labor, A Horrific Problem
Hine's images were haunting and powerful. (britannica.com)
In the 1800s and early 1900s, many industries relied on children to fill important positions in their workforce. Small children could be used to fit into tiny places or to do menial work for little play. These industries were so reliant on child laborers that they balked at social reforms that were in the national discussion of the day. Many factory owners argued that the children were being cared for and looked after as they worked, instead of running in the streets unsupervised while their parents worked. They also argued that the children were learning valuable skills and being productive instead of wasting their days playing or attending school. When talk of social reforms turning to the introduction of child labor laws, many business owners were violently opposed to the new rules and refused to obey the new laws.
An Undercover Photographer
Hine's images showed a different side of childhood in the early 1900s. (eastman.org)
Part of Lewis Hine’s work with the NCLC was to photograph children in different parts of the country working in extreme conditions. He visited factories, canneries, mines, mills, and farms. Most of the time, Hine had to wear a disguise and con his way into facilities with a fabricated story. If the business owners knew who he was and why he wanted to photograph their young workers, he would have never been allowed to enter. In fact, he was risking a beating by undertaking this task. Had he been caught by the business owners, he would have met with violence. He told people he was a bible salesman or, more often, an industrial photograph sent to take pictures of the machinery. He was not always permitted to enter. Undeterred, he just waited outside and snapped images of the young workers as they were leaving.
Shining A Spotlight On Child Labor
Children as young as five were factory laborers. (monovisions.com)
The striking and sobering photographs that Lewis Hine took, like the colorized picture of little Harold Walker at the beginning of this article, were published in magazines, books, and pamphlets. They were shown in slide shows during nationwide lectures and traveling exhibits. Hine’s photos were so powerful and compelling that they helped to sway the U.S. government to pass child labor laws and to strictly enforce them.
Lewis Hine At The Walker Farm
Legislation took aim at children in factories and mills, but not those working on farms. (morningsonmaplestreet.com)
When Lewis Hine, with his camera in hand, visited the Walker farm in Oklahoma in 1916, it was just over a month after Congress passed the Keating-Owen Child Labor Act of 1916. Named for the act’s sponsors, representatives Edward Keating and Robert Latham Owen, the was designed to regulate child labor in the U.S. It prohibited the sale of goods produced by child workers under the age of 14. The act also states that workers under the age of 16 could not work beyond eight hours a day, six days a week. Just two years later, the Supreme Court declared that the Keating-Owen Child Labor Act was unconstitutional. One of the concerns with the act was that it omitted child farm workers from the law. Children like Harold Walker and his sister, Jewel, were, in the eyes of the law, not paid laborers but just kids helping out around the family farm. These kids were expected to spend their days in the fields and the social reformers of the day could not stop their parents from working their children 70 and 80 hours per week.
Harold Walker
Hine's photograph of Harold Walker and his sister, Jewel. (morningsonmaplestreet.com)
According to Lynda Baxter, Harold Walker’s daughter, Harold’s father pulled him out of school in the eighth grade so he could spend more time in the fields. He eventually returned to school to get his high school diploma. He spent his life as a farmer, married three times, and died at the age of 90 years old. His daughter cherished the photos, including this colorized photograph of Walker as a boy, that Lewis Hine took and is proud of her father’s small role in drawing attention to the plight of child laborers.
