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Emma Kelly, eight years old, picks shrimp in the Peerless Oyster Co. Many like her worked from 3:00 A.M. until 4:00 P.M. Location: Bay St. Louis, Mississippi
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Related
Lillian Dambrinio, an eleven-year-old shrimp picker in Peerless Oyster Co. She is an American and lives here. Says picking makes her hands sore. (Not[e] the condition of her shoes. One worker told me, "The acid in the shrimp eats the shoes off your feet.") She says she earns a dollar a day when shrimp are big. Goes to school, but not when factory is busy. Location: Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.
John Velcich, ten years old, picks shrimp at Peerless Oyster Co. This is his third year at the work. Earns 55 cents a day. His hands were all sore and swelled up from the acid in the shrimp. Brother Tony, eight years old, picks some too, but is sick now. Location: Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.
John Velcich, ten years old, picks shrimp at Peerless Oyster Co. This is his third year at the work. Earns 55 cents a day. His hands were all sore and swelled up from the acid in the shrimp. Brother Tony, eight years old, picks some too, but is sick now. Location: Bay St. Louis, Mississippi
Olga Schubert, 855 Gruenwald St. The little 5 yr. old after a day's work that began about 5:00 A.M. helping her mother in the Biloxi Canning Factory, begun at an early hour, was tired out and refused to be photographed. The mother said, "Oh, She's ugly." Both she and other persons said picking shrimp was very hard on the fingers. See also photo 2021. Location: Biloxi, Mississippi
A group of shrimp pickers in Peerless Oyster Co., working during the short noon recess. Many workers, including the children, utilize part of the lunch time this way, when there is a lunch time allowed. In many canneries, they snatch their lunches as best they may while the work goes on and others are getting ahead of them. Location: Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.
Shrimp-pickers in Peerless Oyster Co. Photo taken just as they stood. On other side of the shed, still younger children were working. Out of sixty working (only half were there) I counted fifteen apparently under twelve years old. Some three, four, and five years old were picking too. Parents acknowledged ages and fact that they worked some. Boss said they went to work at 3:00 A.M., and would quit about 3 or 4 P.M. Location: Bay St. Louis, Mississippi
Maud Daly, five years old. Grade Daly, three years old. Each picks about one pot of shrimp a day for the Peerless Oyster Co. The youngest said to be the fastest worker. Location: Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.
"Teeny" Adams, eleven years old. Picks shrimp at Biloxi Canning Co. Makes $1.15 on good days. Lost three weeks of school last month. Expects to work before school now, - I saw her beginning work about 5:00A.M. one morning, in Gorenflo factory. (See summary of young workers, on other label). Location: Biloxi, Mississippi
Maud Daly, five years old. Grace Daly, three years old. Each picks about one pot of shrimp a day for the Peerless Oyster Co. The youngest said to be the fastest worker. Location: Bay St. Louis, Mississippi
Lillian Dambrinio, an eleven-year-old shrimp picker in Peerless Oyster Co. She is an American and lives here. Says picking makes her hands sore. (Note the condition of her shoes. One worker told me, "The acid in the shrimp eats the shoes off your feet.") She says she earns a dollar a day when shrimp are big. Goes to school, but not when factory is busy. Location: Bay St. Louis, Mississippi
Summary
Title from NCLC caption card.
Attribution to Hine based on provenance.
In album: Canneries.
Hine no. 2044.
Credit line: National Child Labor Committee collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
General information about the National Child Labor Committee collection is available at: loc.gov
Forms part of: National Child Labor Committee collection.
Hine grew up in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. As a young man he had to care for himself, and working at a furniture factory gave him first-hand knowledge of industrial workers' harsh reality. Eight years later he matriculated at the University of Chicago and met Professor Frank A. Manny, whom he followed to New York to teach at the Ethical Culture School and continue his studies at New York University. As a faculty member at the Ethical Culture School Hine was introduced to photography. From 1904 until his death he documented a series of sites and conditions in the USA and Europe. In 1906 he became a photographer and field worker for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC). Undercover, disguised among other things as a Bible salesman or photographer for post-cards or industry, Hine went into American factories. His research methodology was based on photographic documentation and interviews. Together with the NCLC he worked to place the working conditions of two million American children onto the political agenda. The NCLC later said that Hine's photographs were decisive in the 1938 passage of federal law governing child labor in the United States. In 1918 Hine left the NCLC for the Red Cross and their work in Europe. After a short period as an employee, he returned to the United States and began as an independent photographer. One of Hine's last major projects was the series Men at Work, published as a book in 1932. It is a homage to the worker that built the country, and it documents such things as the construction of the Empire State Building. In 1940 Hine died abruptly after several years of poor income and few commissions. Even though interest in his work was increasing, it was not until after his death that Hine was raised to the stature of one of the great photographers in the history of the medium.
According to the 1900 US Census, a total of 1,752,187 (about 1 in every 6) children between the ages of five and ten were engaged in "gainful occupations" in the United States. The National Child Labor Committee, or NCLC, was a private, non-profit organization that served as a leading proponent for the national child labor reform movement. It headquartered on Broadway in Manhattan, New York. In 1908 the National Child Labor Committee hired Lewis Hine, a teacher and professional photographer trained in sociology, who advocated photography as an educational medium, to document child labor in the American industry. Over the next ten years, Hine would publish thousands of photographs designed to pull at the nation's heartstrings. The NCLC is a rare example of an organization that succeeded in its mission and was no longer needed. After more than a century of fighting child labor, it shut down in 2017.