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Reading Lewis Hine's Photography of Child Street Labour, 1906–1918

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2016

OENONE KUBIE
OENONE KUBIE*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Oxford University. Email: oenone.kubie@history.ox.ac.uk.
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Abstract

Lewis Hine's child-labour photographs are among the best-known social-documentary photographs ever taken, yet historians have neglected his photography of children working on the streets of America's cities. This paper explores the disputed symbolism of Hine's street-labour photographs. Far from simply depicting another appalling form of child labour, Hine's child street labourers, and the newsboys he photographed in particular, represented a range of ideas from masculinity and entrepreneurial spirit to the dangers of the new urban life and the apparent ignorance of immigrant parents. The symbolic newsboy was often far removed from the reality of child street labour, but he became an important figure in discourse surrounding the nature of childhood and the organization of public space in the United States of the early twentieth century. In exploring these subjects, this article takes on a neglected part of American history, yet an important one. Studying child street labourers reveals much about children, their choices, and the urban environment in the United States during the Progressive Era.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 4 , November 2016 , pp. 873 - 897
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and British Association for American Studies 2016 

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References

1 National Child Labor Collection, Library of Congress (LOC) Prints and Photographs, at www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/nclc, accessed 30 Oct. 2014.

2 Letter to Hine from Owen Lovejoy, 21 July 1938, reproduced in Photo Story: Selected Letters and Photographs of Lewis W. Hines, ed. Dale Kaplan (Washington, DC: Smithsonian, 1992), 110.

3 Owen R. Lovejoy, “Tenth Annual Report of the General Secretary for the Fiscal Year Ending September 30, 1914,” in the NCLC's Child Labor Bulletin, 3, 3 (Nov. 1915), 8–29.

4 C. A. Finnegan, Making Photography Matter: A Viewer's History from the Civil War to the Great Depression (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015); Dimock, George, “Children of the Mills: Re-reading Lewis Hine's Child-Labour Photographs,” Oxford Art Journal, 16, 2 (1993), 37–54 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vicki Goldberg, Lewis W. Hine: Children at Work (Munich and London: Prestel, 1999); Richard S. Lowry, “Lewis Hine's Family Romance,” in Caroline F. Levander and Carol J. Singley, eds., The American Child: A Cultural Studies Reader (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press 2003), 184–207.

5 Presentation by George A. Hall at the NCLC annual meeting (1911), extracted in Joseph H. Manning, “The Lewis Hine Project,” at http://sevensteeples.com, accessed 7 May 2014.

6 Lewis Hine, “The High Cost of Child Labor,” in the NCLC's Child Labor Bulletin, 3, 4 (Feb. 1915), 25–45.

7 Lewis Hine, “Youngsters hanging about …” (Troy, NY, Feb. 1910); Hine, “Late at Night. Street Boys …” (Boston, Oct. 1909); Hine, “Street kids …” (Boston, Oct. 1909), all at www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/nclc, accessed 9 May 2014.

8 William Douglas Morrison cited in Anthony M. Platt, The Child Savers: The Invention of Delinquency (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 1969), 39.

9 This article builds on the recent work of Cara Finnegan. Finnegan explored the contested image of child labour in the mills by analysing how T. R. Dawley, a child-labour proponent, transformed the framing of Hine's photographs of child labour in mills. From pictures symbolizing the oppression and endangering of children, Dawley constructed a narrative in which the child labourers were developing good industrial habits, good morals, good minds, and even good health. See Finnegan.

10 This pieces borrows from the vocabulary of media theorist Todd Gitlin's work on “framing.” For Gitlin, media frames are principles of “selection, emphasis, and presentation” that “enable journalists to process large amounts of information quickly and routinely; to recognize it as information, to assign it to cognitive categories, and to package it for efficient relay to their audiences.” They are, he notes, unavoidable. Todd Gitlin, The Whole World Is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the New Left (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1980), 6–7.

11 Lewis Hine's photography has often been used in discussion of theories of the history of photography. The first book-length treatment of Lewis Hine, by Kate Sampsell-Willmann, examined Hine's photographs from the context of Hine's life and thought. Sampsell-Willmann sought to produce a counterweight to postmodern theory about photography as a historical source. She argued that in focussing on the multitude of ways any photograph could be viewed, the photographer him- or herself becomes irrelevant or invisible. With this article, I hope to balance Sampsell-Willmann's argument with the work of cultural theorists such as Allan Sekula, whose work on photographic meaning I find useful and convincing. In practical terms, I mean that Hine's intentions are certainly integral to this article, but I also consider how multiple cultural workers also used and understood the signs and their signifieds in Hine's photographs. Kate Sampsell-Willmann, Lewis Hine as Social Critic (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009); Allan Sekula, ‘On the Invention of Photographic Meaning’, in Victor Burgin, ed., Thinking Photography (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1982), 84–109.

12 Selecting such a small number of photographs from Hine's vast body of work was challenging. Depending on the way the photographs are used within the article, I have chosen photographs for their typicality, their fame, their impact, or an atypical element. With regard to the need to place these photographs within a textual context I draw on the work of Alan Trachtenberg, who wrote that the power of Hine's child-labour photographs comes not from the subjects alone or from the composition of the pictures: “It arises from the total structure of the work, the presentation of images and texts.” Alan Trachtenberg, Reading American Photographs: Images as History, Mathew Brady to Walker Evans (New York: Hill and Wang, 1989), 203. Elsewhere Trachtenberg writes that “the caption is central to [Hine's] endeavour, to his art”; further, “As much as possible, his work should be seen in its original form.” Lewis Wickes Hine and Alan Trachtenberg, America & Lewis Hine: Photographs 1904–1940 (New York: Aperture, 1977), 133, 130. Where possible, I have tried to follow Trachtenberg's suggestion and have analysed Hine's photographs alongside their captions and any media they appeared in.

13 Story of John Howell in Manning, “The Lewis Hine Project,” accessed 10 May 2014; Lewis Hine, “One of America's Youngest Newsboys …” (Tampa, Florida, March 1913), at www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/nclc, accessed 13 May 2014.

14 An article in the New London Day extracted in Manning, “The Lewis Hine Project,” accessed 24 May 2014.

15 Lewis Hine, “5 yr. old Willie …”, at www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/nclc, accessed 10 May 2014.

16 For the most famous of this type of image see Figure 5.

17 Lewis Hine, “Exhibit panel,” LOT 7480, v.3, no. 3593 (1913), at www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/nclc, accessed 10 May 2014.

18 Lewis Hine, “Exhibit Panel,” LOT 7480, v.3, no. 3592 (1913), at www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/nclc, accessed 10 May 2014.

19 Louisa May Alcott, “Our Little Newsboy,” in Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag (Boston: Robert's Brothers 1872), 191–92.

20 For example, see Myron E. Adams, “Children in American Street Trades,” in Child Labor: The Addresses at the First Annual Meeting of the National Child Labor Committee, Held in New York City, Feb 14–16, 1905 (New York, 1905), at https://archive.org, accessed 24 May 2014; Clopper, Child Labor in City Streets; Lewis Hine, “Exhibit Panel,” LOT 7480, v.3, no. 3686 (1913); Lewis Hine, “Exhibit Panel,” LOT 7483, v.2, no. 3754 (1913 or 1914); Lewis Hine, “Exhibit Panel,” LOT 7483, v.2, no., 3753 (1913 or 1914), all at www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/nclc, accessed 7 May 2014.

21 For examples see Lewis Hine, “Newsie Selling before School …” (Rochester, NY, Feb. 1910); Hine, “Newsie ‘Flipping Cars’…” (Boston, Oct. 1909); Hine, “Flipping Cars” (St. Louis, May 1910), all at www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/nclc, accessed 7 May 2014; Edward N. Clopper, Child Labor in City Streets (New York: Macmillan, 1912).

22 “Car Cripples Newsboy,” Indianapolis Star, Nov. 1909, extracted in Manning, “The Lewis Hine Project,” accessed 7 May 2014; Clopper.

23 Presentation by George A. Hall to the NCLC (1911), extracted in Manning, “The Lewis Hine Project,” accessed 7 May 2014.

24 Lewis Hine, “9.30PM, A Common Case of Teamwork …” (Hartford, CT, March 1909), at www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/nclc, accessed 7 May 2014.

25 Lovejoy, Owen, “Child Labor and the Night Messenger Service,” The Survey, 24 (1910), 311–16Google Scholar.

26 Elizabeth J. Clapp, Mothers of All Children: Women Reformers and the Rise of Juvenile Courts in Progressive Era America (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998), 12.

27 Karen Sanchez-Eppler, “Playing at Class,” in Levander and Singley, The American Child, 40–62.

28 Julie Novkov, “Historicizing the Figure of the Child in Legal Discourse: The Battle over the Regulation of Child Labor,” American Journal of Legal History, 44 (Oct. 2000), 369–404.

29 Clopper; Adams, 31–33; Michael A. Rembis, Defining Deviance: Sex, Science, and Delinquent Girls, 1890–1960 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press 2011), 35–36.

30 Lewis Hine, “Truants Like These …” (St. Louis, 9 May 1910), at www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/nclc, accessed 7 May 2014; see also the two photos under the title Hine, “Meyer Slein …” (St. Louis, 9 May 1910), at www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/nclc, accessed 7 May 2014.

31 Lewis Hine, “AM Mon …” (St. Louis, 9 May 1910), at www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/nclc, accessed 25 May 2014.

32 Seixas, Peter, “Lewis Hine: From ‘Social’ to ‘Interpretive’ Photographer,” American Quarterly, 39, 3 (Autumn, 1987), 381–409 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 393.

33 This topic needs considerable attention in its own right. The efforts of the African American community to protect their own children has begun to be studied; see, for example, Geoff K. Ward, The Black Child-Savers: Racial Democracy and Juvenile Justice (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2012), but this topic, the racialized nature of child saving and the experiences of African American working children, has not received the attention needed.

34 David I. Macleod, Building Character in the American Boy: The Boy Scouts, YMCA, and Their Forerunners, 1870–1920 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press 1983), 45–47; Gail Bederman, Manliness & Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880–1917 (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1995).

35 Bederman, 17.

36 “The District Dawg,” Washington Post, 14 April 1912, extracted in Manning, “The Lewis Hine Project,” accessed 10 May 2014.

37 Leslie Fiedler, Love and Death in the American Novel (New York: Criterion Books, 1960), cited in Jeffrey Turner, “On Boyhood and Public Swimming: Sidney Kingsley's Dead End and the Representation of Underclass Street Kids in American Cultural Production,” in Levander and Singley, The American Child, 208–25, 219.

38 Clopper; Horatio Alger, Rough and Ready; Or, Life among the New York Newsboys (1868), at https://archive.org, accessed 7 May 2014; reporter for the Hartford Courant cited in Peter C. Baldwin, Domesticating the Street: The Reform of Public Space in Hartford, 1850–1930 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press 1999), 97.

39 Clopper; unknown author, “Newsboys Will Make Practical Business Men,” New Castle News, 29 July 1924, extracted in Manning, “The Lewis Hine Project,” accessed 7 May 2014.

40 Juvenile Protective Association records, Box 5, Folder 86, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Illinois at Chicago.

41 Correspondence from Walter Strong of the Chicago Daily News, Juvenile Protective Association records, Box 5, Folder 86, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Illinois at Chicago.

42 “The Newsboys of Dallas” American City and County, 12 (1915), extracted in Manning, “The Lewis Hine Project,” accessed 7 May 2014; Clopper.

43 Lewis Hine, “Isaac Boyett …” (Waco, TX, Nov. 1913), at www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/nclc, accessed 7 May 2014.

44 Adams, “Children in American Street Trades,” 24.

45 Alger.

46 Charles Loring Brace, The Dangerous Classes of New York and Twenty Years' Work among Them (New York: Wynkoop & Hallenbeck, 1872), 114–15.

47 Guggenheimer held a dinner for four hundred newsboys in New York in 1903, gave each an American flag and assured them they too could have fame and fortune. Chaim M. Rosenberg, Child Labor in America: A History (Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland, 2013), 115.

48 “The District Dawg.”

49 William James cited in Macleod, Building Character in the American Boy, 45.

50 Rebecca Jo Plant, Mom: The Transformation of Motherhood in Modern America (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2010).

51 Priscilla Ferguson Clement, Growing Pains: Children in the Industrial Age, 1850–1890 (New York and London: Twayne Publishers and Prentice Hall International, 1997), 142–43.

52 Baldwin, Domesticating the Street, 98–114; Lewis Hine, “Lena Lochiavo …” (Cincinnati, Aug. 1908); Hine, “Marie Coster …” (Cincinnati, Aug. 1908); Hine, “2 Newsgirls” (Wilmington, DE, May 1910); Hine, “Newsgirls Waiting for Papers” (Hartford, CT, March, 1909), all at www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/nclc, accessed 9 May 2014.

53 Police Commissioner Kershaw cited in an article in the Bridgeport Herald extracted in Manning, “The Lewis Hine Project,” accessed 7 May 2014.

54 Brace, 114–15.

55 Hine, “Newsgirls Waiting for Papers.”

56 Police Commissioner Kershaw cited in an article in the Bridgeport Herald extracted in Manning, “The Lewis Hine Project,” accessed 7 May 2014; anonymous letter to the Hartford Courant (1895) and articles from the Hartford Courant cited in Baldwin, 98–100; Anne M. Knupfer, Reform and Resistance: Gender, Delinquency, and America's First Juvenile Court (New York: Routledge 2001), 68–77.

57 Clopper, Child Labor in City Streets.

58 Jane Addams, The Spirit of the Youth in City Streets (New York: Macmillan, 1910), 10.

59 Lewis Hine, “Johnnie Burns …” (St. Louis, 9 May 1910), at www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/nclc, accessed 10 May 2014; report by Zenas L. Potter in the bulletin of the NCLC (1913) extracted in Manning, “The Lewis Hine Project,” accessed 10 May 2014.

60 “Car Cripples Newsboy’, Indianapolis Star, Nov. 1909, extracted in Manning, “The Lewis Hine Project,” accessed 7 May 2014; Baldwin, 113; Lewis Hine, “A typical ‘Heavy Man’ …” (St. Louis, May 1910); Hine, “Newsboys. A Heavy Man …” (St. Louis, May 1910), both at www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/nclc, accessed 10 May 2014.

61 Lewis Hine, “How Insignificant …” (Washington, DC, April 1912), at www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/nclc, accessed 10 May 2014.

62 James H. Blenk, “The Child in the Street,” in Child Labor Bulletin: Child Labor: A National Problem, Proceedings of the 10th Annual Conference on Child Labor Held at New Orleans, La., March 15–18, 1914: Published by the NCLC (New York, 1914), at https://archive.org, accessed 24 May 2014, 53–54.

63 Clopper.

64 E. N. Clopper, “Why Overlook the Street Worker?”, in Child Labor Bulletin: Child Labor: A National Problem, Proceedings of the 10th Annual Conference on Child Labor, at https://archive.org, accessed 24 May 2014, 57.

65 Hine, “The High Cost of Child Labor.”

66 The boys names were actually Joseph and Meyer Bishop. Whether Hine sought to anonymize the boys or simply did not think it important to get their names correct is unclear. See the story of Joseph and Meyer Bishop in Manning, “The Lewis Hine Project,” accessed 10 May 2014.

67 Lewis Hine, “A Common Case of ‘Team Work’” (Hartford, CT, March 1909), at www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/nclc, accessed 10 May 2014.

68 “Newsboys Will Make Practical Business Men,” New Castle News, 29 July 1924, extracted in Manning, “The Lewis Hine Project,” accessed 7 May 2014.

69 “New Child Labor Law Will Force Hardships upon the Needy,” Danville Bee, 10 July 1922, extracted in Manning, “The Lewis Hine Project,” accessed 7 May 2014.

70 Madge Nave cited in National Child Labor Committee, Proceedings of the 11th Annual Conference on Child Labor, at Washington D. C., January 5th and 6th published by the NCLC (1915), at https://archive.org, accessed 28 May 2014, 24.

71 Louis W. Knight, Jane Addams: Spirit in Action (New York: W. W. Norton, 2010), 255–56.

72 Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America (New York: Knopf 1985).

73 Sampsell-Willmann, Lewis Hine, 131.

74 Disney's Newsies, at www.newsiesthemusical.com, accessed 26 May 2014.

75 Platt, The Child Savers; Rembis, Defining Deviance; Knupfer, Reform and Resistance; Macleod, Building Character in the American Boy.