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A thread through time

Childhood

What did it mean to grow up in a mill?

Children worked in American mills from Slater's first spinning room until federal law finally barred them in 1938. Lewis Hine's camera made them impossible to ignore.

7 stories across 5 chapters

  1. 1790–1810 · The Industrial Spy

    Labor

    The Rhode Island System

    America's first factory system built on the labor of children.

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    Boys who worked in the Quidwick Company mill at Anthony, Rhode Island-child labor that persisted a century after the Rhode Island System began.
    Lewis Wickes Hine, "All these boys (and more) worked in the Quidwick Co. Mill. They went in when the signal was given. Anthony, R.I.," April 16, 1909. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NAID 523181). Public domain.

  2. 1870–1910 · The Garment District

    Material Culture

    Lewis Hine and the Camera as Indictment

    A sociologist with a flash camera redefined documentary photography.

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    Addie Card, a twelve-year-old spinner in North Pownal, Vermont-one of Lewis Hine's most widely reproduced photographs.
    Lewis Wickes Hine, "Addie Card, 12 years old. Spinner in cotton mill, North Pownal, Vermont," 1910. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Open Access (165230). CC0.

  3. 1880–1920 · The Gilded Age of Wool

    Labor

    Bread and Roses

    The 1912 Lawrence strike that united dozens of nationalities.

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    Children of Lawrence strikers sent to stay with supporters in New York during the 1912 strike.
    Bain News Service, children of Lawrence strikers sent to sympathizers in New York City, 1912. Library of Congress, George Grantham Bain Collection. Public domain.
  4. Impact

    The Piedmont Mill Village

    A new social order built around the Southern cotton mill.

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    The company-owned mill village of the Highland Yarn Mills, High Point, North Carolina.
    Lewis Wickes Hine, "High Point, North Carolina-Housing. General view of company-owned mill village-Highland Yarn Mills," 1936-1937. Works Progress Administration National Research Project, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NAID 518534). Public domain.
  5. Impact

    The Dagenhart Boys and the Law

    How a Charlotte cotton mill family carried child labor to the Supreme Court, and why it took twenty-five years to end it.

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    Children on the night shift at Highland Park Mill No. 3 in Charlotte, North Carolina, at 10:30 at night. Hine noted that one boy had worked in the mill for nine years, half of it at night.
    Lewis Wickes Hine, "A few of the hands on the night shift in Highland Park Mill No. 3, Charlotte, N.C. 10:30 P.M. January 7/09," 1909. Library of Congress, National Child Labor Committee Collection (LC-DIG-nclc-01577). Public domain.

  6. 1920–1930 · The Electric Loom

    Biography

    Ella May Wiggins: The Singer of Gastonia

    A mill mother shot dead on the road to a union rally in 1929.

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    Ella May Wiggins, songwriter and Loray Mill strike organizer, killed September 14, 1929.
    Unidentified photographer, Ella May Wiggins. Public domain in the United States, via English Wikipedia.

  7. 1980–2000 · The Branded Empire

    Material Culture

    Calvin Klein and the Birth of Designer Denim

    How a Bronx-born designer made workwear a status symbol.

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    An American indoor shopping mall in the 1980s-the retail stage on which apparel brands built national empires.
    Carol M. Highsmith, "Indoor shopping mall," between 1980 and 1990. Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (LCCN 2011635987). Public domain.

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