50 Haunting Photos of Child Labor in the Early 1900s

The Industrial Revolution ushered in a wave of change in the workforce. With advances in technology, production became quicker, more efficient, and the amount of product that could be produced grew exponentially.

With the demand for products increasing, production had to be quicker and hours had to be long to meet these demands. Industries like textiles, mills, mining, and agriculture saw significant increases in supply and demand.

It soon became clear that the current workforce could not keep up with the increasing demand on goods. Because of this, industries looked for other means of filling this need in their supply output.

This led to a boom in child labor. Some statistics even quote the percentage of the workforce during the Industrial Revolution that consisted of children at 20%.

Children were increasingly exploited during this time. Little to no pay with little to no breaks. Long work days frequently going over 10 hours a day.

Children were also often used to perform dangerous tasks because they were often the only ones who could fit or had hands small enough to be or reach into small spaces in factories and mines.

This exploitation of child labor led to the creation of the National Child Labor Committee. Their goal was to reform the child labor laws and protect children from these harsh conditions in the early 1900s.

In 1908, Lewis Hines started working for the NCLC. He had the difficult and often dangerous job of capturing images of the exploitation of children to bring them to the public eye, as this was a practice that was hidden from the public as much as possible at this time.

Despite threats of death and violence, he was able to capture hundreds of photographs that helped the NCLC lobby to better the lives of children during this time. The following photos from Hine’s collection highlight the dangerous and difficult lives of child laborers during the Industrial Revolution.