Exposing Child Labor: Cotton Mill Girl, 1908
Lewis Hine was an investigative photographer for the National Child Labor Committee. He thought that if he documented child labor, it would force citizens to demand a change. It wasn’t easy for him to get into these places, so he had to pose as a Bible seller, insurance agent or industrial photographer.
Lewis Hine/Time
He documented children working in meatpacking houses and coal mines. This particular photo is of a girl named Sadie Pfeifer who he felt was the perfect subject for a photo that he could expose to the world. She was “one of the many small children at work” at a cotton-spinning machine in Lancaster, South Carolina. This photo and others of his led to regulatory legislation and cut the number of child laborers to about half from 1910 to 1920.
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