(November 20th) Tracking Down the Lives of Child Laborers

                On November 20^th in O’Leary 222 South Campus, there was a presentation from Joe Manning about “Tracking Down the Lives of Child Laborers”. Joe Manning is a historian who for seven years has been in the process of identifying child laborers photographed by Lewis Hine in the early 1900s. Along with identifying the photographed child laborers, he told stories about tracking down the descendants and interviewing them. He has identified more than 300 children photographed by Lewis Hine, some of the cases requiring a good dose of luck, and over 5,000 child laborers were photographed by Lewis Hine.

                Joe Manning started with Lewis Hine’s photo of a girl near a big machine, and then asked the audience what they thought when they saw it. Someone noted that she was barefoot, and that the big machine was such a contrast to the little girl looking at the camera. I mentioned that she wasn’t smiling, which Manning then responded to me with how back in that time period things were different when it came to camera shots. Historically speaking, in the early 1900s people didn’t know how to pose for the camera, so it was actually normal to see pictures of people who didn’t smile like in today’s photos. Manning also discussed how Lewis Hine photographed the child laborers. He said that Hine wanted to photograph the child laborers in a way that they looked like normal, everyday children. If the children had expressions of sadness and hopelessness, people would just think that the child had no hope and was doomed. With the children looking like everyones’ children, people would wonder “oh hey, look at this child here! Why is he/she working in the mills?” Hine was an important person in fighting against child labor, and these photos were carefully taken in a way that would allow people to pay attention to these children. At first, they don’t even look like they’d be child laborers, I say Hine did a great job with his photography. It turns out Child labor laws were passed because of a lot of Hine’s photos.

                 Manning shared several stories with us about his search for identifying the children found in these photos. While I don’t remember the specific details of what he shared with the audience, he did mention many techniques that I would have never guessed using. From this event, I learned about the Social Security Death Index. Basically, it’s a database online where your social security number gets registered when you die. However, most people in the United States didn’t have a social security number until World War II. This made it trickier to find information on the child laborers who were photographed earlier in 1900, such as dates like 1910 in the first photograph Manning showed. It also turns out, however, that draft registration cards are very reliable for information on a person. Manning said that throughout his experience, draft registration cards had not been incorrect once in his searches. Someone in the audience asked about people who lied about their age to participate in the military. Manning said that people who lied about their age to get into the military were volunteers, not drafted. Tracking down these descendants and child laborers is tough, because some of them got married more than once, a lot of state records are closed and Manning had to find ways of getting permission to access sources like obituaries, and he also pays for some of the sources he uses for information.

                Manning also showed photos of these child laborers later on in their lives when they were old for a comparison. There was one child laborer in particular who had this type of slanted smile on his face. When Manning showed the picture of him as an old man later, the audience laughed and he said “didn’t change much, did he?” That slant smile was still there, it was rather amusing. Surprisingly, many of these child laborers lived a long life. For instance, the child laborer he showed in the beginning, who he found to be Adeline Lavigne, died at 95 years old. Many others lived to be in their 80s or 90s. None of the grandchildren knew about their grandparents being photographed; this was a repeating pattern amongst the descendants. The emotional responses that resulted from Manning contacting these descendants about their grandparents being historical figures were just incredible. Think about going through your life, many years, not knowing what’s happened to your parents or other family members, and then finally receiving that call when you’re in your middle ages or older. These child laborers also weren’t just laborers, they were unique individuals with lives, were real people, and historical figures. Manning talked about some of these peoples’ contributions to society.

                Overall, this was a great Honors event and I’m glad Steven Courtemanche was able to arrange it. I learned about some sources that could be used to find information on people, also including sites such as ancestry.com and newspaperarchives.com. I didn’t know about Lewis Hine until that day, and his photos gave me the desired effect: showing that these children were being treated cruelly with the backbreaking hours of labor they had to do at such a young age where they’re still short and growing. The conditions in the factories were miserable and detrimental to the development of these children – and there was also the risk of death from dangerous work.