In 1900s America, child labor was not uncommon. You were likely to find children working not just, say, as newspaper deliverers but also in cotton mills and out in the cotton fields, in mines and even on the docks in Baltimore as oyster shuckers. In 1904, a group of people who abhorred these practices came together and founded the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC) with a mission of “promoting the rights, awareness, dignity, well-being and education of children and youth as they relate to work and working.” They wanted to end child labor. In an effort to ramp up their work against child labor, they decided to hire a schoolteacher and photographer from New York City to document the injustices with a camera. That man was Lewis Hine, and his work would become legendary and secure him a place as a master American photographer.
