CHILD LABOUR STORIES
These young boys worked inside a factory building in 1911, processing the impurities from the coal by hand. The dust was so thick at times that many of the photographer’s shots didn't come out at all, yet none of the boys were given protective gear. They were instead beaten and kicked by their overseers if they didn't seem to be working fast enough.
This five-year-old boy worked at an oyster plant in 1911, running barefoot on cracked shells as he retrieved buckets of shellfish to shuck. The company hired many children of his age to shuck oysters for as little as 30 cents a day, approximately $7 in today’s currency. If you've ever shucked an oyster yourself, you can appreciate just how dangerous this line of work can be, particularly for someone that young.
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These two berry hullers were only two and three years old, but they worked long, twelve hour shifts, just like the rest of their family members. Hullers at the company would earn two cents per quart of berries finished, but there is no indication of how many quarts would typically be completed in a day.
This 12-year-old boy lost his hand while operating the mowing machine he is posed on. Despite being maimed, the child still helped his family harvest vegetables with his good hand as soon as he was able to get back in the fields. His mother lamented that “now we will have to educate him,” since he could no longer work as a manual laborer on the farm.
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