Figure 1.--We believe this 1913 photograph is a Lewis Wickes Hine potograph. It shows some of the younger boys working in Brazos Valley Cotton Mills at West in South Texas. Charlie Lott was 13 years old according to a family record. Norman Vaughn was 12 years old and apparently under legal age. Note that the boys at this time were less likely to wear overalls than the adult mill workers. Look at the bottom of the photograpj here. You can see the cotton fibers in thec asir beguinning to accumulate, a process like dust bunnies on steroids. .

The Industrial Revolution began with textile mills in Edgland during the second half of the 19th century. Weaving was essentially a hand powered mechanical process. And the production of textiles was a much more important sector of the ecomomy than is the case today. And the Industrial Revolution that remade human society actually began at textile mills in Britain. The same process played out in America with the American Industrial Revolution beginning with textile mills in New England during the early-19th century. We have realitively limited information about child labor at these early mills. There were many separate tasking involved in the manufacture of spun textiles. The younger children were called 'slubber doffers' or just 'doffers' Slubber was a derogatory term meaning to perform in a slipshod fashion. A doffer was a worker who removed the 'doffs' ( bobbins, pirns or spindles ) holding spun fiber from a spinning frame and replaced them with empty ones. Doffing was a major task assigned to children. The task necesitated speed and dexterity rather than strength. So it was a task often assigned to children who had the added advantage that they could be paid less. Another task was sweeping the mill floors where cotton fibers generated by the machinery accumulated during the day. In the image here you can see cotton fibers beginning to accumulate on the floor (figure 1). The most advanced task commonly asigned to children was spinners. Even after photography first appeared in the 1840s, textile mills and child labor was not something that early photographers focused on. We mostly see studio portraits in the 19th century. We do begin to see photographicv images at the mills until after the turn-of-the 20th century. Those images would play an important role in the Progrssive Movement and the effort to address child labor in America. Here Louis Heins was especially active in creating an archive of child labor images. And images were much more powerful than paragraphs of text with data. We note ome image which seems to be the owner's or overseeer's son, but we can not yet confirm that. Because of the machinery involved, working in textile mills was hazardous. And children ere not as careful as adults. Accidents that led to physical imjuries were not uncommon. here were even fatalities. Not well understood at the time was that children in particuklar faced a high risk of respiratory issues and other illnesses due to the harsh conditions, especilly the air filled with cotton fibers. As northern states began to pass child labor laws and unions became more important, mill owners began moving south to states that did not have child labor laws or weak ones, meaning the southern states. This is why textile manufacturing gravitated south, but anyher intrresting priocess is why heavy industry did not develop in the South to any great extent. Of course, the same reasom that textile manufacture did not first develop in the South.

Created: 11:14 PM 9/22/2010
Last updated: 11:14 PM 9/22/2010