NEWSPAPER LOGO
Children in an Agrarian Age
A
I
B
Tools
Match the letters
next to the drawing of
each tool with its name
below. What do you think
these tools were used for?
Four-finger
“Bow” cradle
C
Scythe
Drill
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
Children in an Agrarian Age
2-3
Apprentices
4
Cabin Boys
5
Mill Girls
6
Canal Boys
7
Upon their Bended Backs
8
Child Stars
9
When Childhood Became a Cause
10
The Orphan Trains
11
Shedding Light on Child Labor
12-13
The Child Labor Debate
14-15
Free the Children
16
As you study Children Who
Built America, read the
newspaper each day and clip
and collect in a folder all news
articles, opinion columns and
advertisements that relate
to children.
Teachers!
To order the newspaper for your
classroom, copies of the
Children Who Built America
student supplement, or for more
information about the
supplement and accompanying
Teacher's Guide, contact
(insert name and contact
info here)
t’s a beautiful afternoon in the summer
of 1745. You’re sweeping the porch of
your family home in Saratoga, N.Y.,
when suddenly your
old broom’s binding
breaks and it falls
apart, scattering
straw everywhere.
When you drop the
broom handle to
gather up the straw,
the old wood snaps
in two.
You need a new
broom, but where
will you get it?
There are no
shopping malls or
supermarkets in preindustrial America,
so you’re going to
have to make that
A woman sweeps snow
off her front steps in a
1909 photo. Before the
1800’s, brooms were all
homemade, using tree
branches wound together
with twine. A broommaking machine was
invented in 1810.
When All Work Was Homework
From colonial times until the early 1800’s, children
worked growing crops, producing goods, and doing
whatever else was
necessary to help their
families survive. In preindustrial America,
families made or grew
almost everything that
they used or consumed. If
your house needed fixing,
you used your own tools
and did your own repairs.
If you needed a new shirt,
you made one by hand.
Child labor wasn’t
thought of as a problem:
It was expected that
everyone in the family
would contribute.
Boys in rural areas
In this family-based
worked as farm hands
economic system, child
and were kept particularly care, schooling and job
busy at harvest time.
training were handled by
friends, relatives and the community. In fact, one of the
reasons people had children was to have help around
the house and farm. Churches and the government
supported this system. Preachers warned, “The devil
makes work for idle hands,” and some of the colonies
had laws mandating that children work.
It is said that understanding the past helps people to
better understand the present. Some things stay the same
and some things change. Make a Venn diagram that
compares the lives of children on colonial farms and the
lives of children in America today.
Read the newspaper every day for a week and clip
and save all articles relating to the lives of
2
broom yourself. You’ll need to find the wood
and strip, sand and polish it, and then
collect the thatch and bind it onto the
handle you’ve made.
And you do, without
giving any of it a
second thought.
What would you do
today if your broom
fell apart? What’s
different about the
world today that
makes this possible?
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In this rural-agrarian time, there were few public
schools. By working at home or in a neighbor’s home,
children learned the skills they would need as adults.
Older children watched the younger ones, but even
young children were
expected to perform simple
chores, and they mastered
specialized tasks as they
grew older. Girls learned the
skills needed to run a home
and keep a family fed and
clothed. Boys were taught to
work with farm,
construction or trade
tools, and were trained to
take over their father’s
business or trade.
A difficult job for girls working
at home was churning butter.
Slightly soured cream was
put in the churn and
girls would have
to turn the plunger,
sometimes for hours,
until the cream
turned to butter.
children in the United States and abroad. At the end
of the week, create a Venn diagram that compares
the lives of two children featured in the articles
you’ve collected.
NOTE: The Teacher Guide has a reproducible Activity
Worksheet with an explanation of VENN diagrams.
“Bound Out”
I
f a family was poor, they
might hire out their
children to reduce their
household expenses and
bring in extra income.
Conversely, if a couple were
childless, they might take in
other people’s children to
work for them, housing them,
feeding them, and possibly
giving them instruction in a
skill or craft. Many poor and
orphaned children were
legally “bound out” to work
for and live with other
families. These children and
orphans provided services in
exchange for room and board,
an arrangement communities
liked because they didn’t have
to pay to support indigent
children. However, this
system wasn’t a good one for
all the children
involved: Some
“bound out”
children were
treated like slaves.
Asa Sheldon
Asa Sheldon was a
successful farmer
and teamster
(someone who
transports goods). In
his autobiography,
what he
remembered
most about
growing up on a
farm in
Massachusetts
was work. Like
most American
Before pipes
boys at the turn
and pumps,
water had to be of the 19th
century, Asa was
carried to
wherever it was expected to help
support his
needed.
family. As his
family was poor,
he was “bound out” to live with and
work for another family. Asa’s
wages were part cash, and part cow.
Sheldon wrote:
“On April 14th, 1797, being still in
my ninth year, Mr. Daniel Parker
came to my father’s house to get a
boy to live with him. … I
commenced my servitude here
without time or remuneration
This illustration of an apple orchard at harvest time looks idyllic, but very often the children performing this
kind of manual labor were poor and were “bound out” to other families: In return for food and a bed, “bound
out” children worked in other people’s homes or on their farms, sometimes for as much as 10 years.
(1788 – 1870)
being stated, which … is a
circumstance liable to produce
difficulty. … Mrs. Parker told me to
call her ‘mother’. … She fed me
when hungry; dried my clothes
when wet; cared for my every want;
and when troubles assailed that she
could not alleviate, pitied and
sympathized with me. …
“The second year, in hoeing time, I
was able to keep up with the hands,
unless the ground was very tough.
… My father needing a cow, he
agreed with Mr. Parker to take one
for $22, and I was to work for him
another year … to pay for her. …
“Mr. Parker … was unwilling to
let me slide on the ice, because it
wore my shoes out; but thanks to
mother Parker’s adroit
management, I found frequent
opportunities to enjoy an hour of
glee on the ponds. …
“At the commencement of my
third year, Mr. Parker frequently
urged that I should be bound to
him, telling my father that he
would give him $20 in cash, and me
on becoming twenty-one. To this
my father agreed, and the
necessary documents were signed
without mother’s knowledge.”
Noah Blake’s Diary
(1805)
Eric Sloane’s “Diary of an Early
American Boy: Noah Blake 1805”
(New York: NY, W. Funk, 1962)
incorporates the diary that 15-yearold Noah Blake wrote in 1805.
Sloane later used the original woodbacked, leather bound diary as a
guide for building a small cabin, as
he imagined Blake’s cabin to be,
next to The Sloan-Stanley Museum
in Kent, Conn., which houses his
collection of early American tools.
Eric Sloane (1905-1985) painted the
murals at the National Air and
Space Museum.
new bridge beams are seasoned and
ready. When the waters subside, he
shall begin to erect it. We are
shaping up the abutments.”
“A P R I L 1 0 - 1 1 : Worked on the
bridge abutments.”
“A P R I L 1 2 : Good Friday. It rained
all day.”
Blake wrote:
“A P R I L 1 - 6 : Robert Adams came by
in his Father’s sleigh to take me to
the Adams place. I shall help them
for the week with maple sugaring.”
“A P R I L 7 : Palm Sunday …
returned home with Mother and
Father. I earned a tub of sweetening
[maple sugar] for my week’s work.
It is good to be home again.”
“A P R I L 8 : … seasonable weather
for Spring business has arrived. I
finished the winter’s lot of nailmaking and put the forge to rights.”
“A P R I L 9 : Flooding all but washed
our bridge away. Father says the
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Historians piece together the
puzzles of history by studying various
types of primary source documents,
including written materials, images
and artifacts. This supplement offers a
selection of excerpts from rare primary
source documents that together tell
the history of child labor in America.
As you read this supplement, study
the images for artifacts that you might
not find in other time periods. Think
about how each artifact was made,
and then discuss what that tells us
about the technology of the time.
Select three artifacts described in
words or pictures in today’s
newspaper to include in a time
capsule. Write a paragraph to go with
each artifact, explaining what these
items will tell future historians about
today’s technology.
3
Apprentices
B
y the early 1800’s, American families and
communities were able to produce not only
enough goods to survive, but also surplus goods,
which could be sold or bartered
for other goods. For the first
time in American history, it
started to make economic sense
for boys to leave the farm to work in town as apprentices
to master tradesmen such as coppersmiths or printers.
Instead of following in their fathers’
footsteps as farmers, these boys were
breaking with tradition by learning
skills they could never have learned
at home.
Printer’s Devils
Boys usually began their
apprenticeships between the ages of 10
and 14. Working conditions under a
master craftsman, prosperous farmer
or sea captain could be quite different
from those on the family farm.
Apprentices and bound-out children
often worked under
restrictive, longterm contracts. If
they were unhappy
in their situation,
mistreated or
abused, they had
no recourse but to
run away, which
was illegal, and
hope to find work
someplace else.
After the Revolutionary War, Americans
took great pride in American-made goods. No
American-made product was more
commonplace or highly valued than the
printed word. Every town had a print shop
that produced books, newspapers, handbills
and business forms. And
every print shop had its
“devil,” an apprentice
whose job included
cleaning the ink-covered
type and printing press.
Because their hands and
faces were always inkstained, these kids were
nicknamed “printer’s
devils.” Many famous
Americans started out as
printer’s devils, among
them Benjamin Franklin.
starting for the wide West
in quest of a future
home; so, not needing at
(1811 – 1872)
the moment my services,
Born on a hardscrabble
he readily acceded to my
farm in New Hampshire,
wishes. I walked over to
Horace Greeley became a
Poultney, saw the
printer’s devil at age 15. It Ben Franklin dreamed of going to sea. His older brother, Josiah, went to sea and drowned. publishers, came to an
proved to be the start of a When Ben expressed a desire to head to sea, his father found him a safe, land-based job
understanding with
great career. At age 30, he
them, and returned; and
as a printer’s devil.
founded The New York
a few days afterward—
Tribune, which became the most widely read newspaper in America.
April 18, 1826—my father took me down, and verbally agreed with them
The following is excerpted from “Recollections of a Busy Life.”
for my services. I was to remain till twenty years of age, be allowed my
board only for six months, and thereafter $40 per annum in addition for
my clothing.”
Horace Greeley
Greely wrote:
“Having loved and devoured newspapers … from
childhood, I early resolved to be a printer if I could. When
but eleven years old, hearing that an apprentice was
wanted in the newspaper office at Whitehall [Vermont], I
accompanied my father to that office, and tried hard to
find favor in the printer’s eyes; but he promptly and
properly rejected me as too young, and would not relent;
so I went home downcast and sorrowful. No new
opportunity was presented till the Spring of 1826, when
an apprentice was advertised for by the publishers of The
Northern Spectator, at East Poultney, Vt. … The village,
though larger and more active then than now, was not
adequate to the support of a newspaper; but the citizens thought otherwise,
and resolved to maintain one, under the management of committee … there
was room for a new apprentice, and I wanted the place. My father was about
Adolph S. Ochs (1858 – 1935)
of The New York Times
Ochs started in the newspaper business at age 11.
He got his start at a newspaper in Cincinnati, sweeping
floors and running errands for 25 cents a day to support
his family. A quick learner, he soon became a skillful
printer’s devil.
At age 20, Ochs became a part-owner of the
Chattanooga Times in Tennessee, which he turned into
one of the most respected and profitable papers in the
region. At 38, Ochs purchased The New York Times. He
believed that a newspaper should be “clean, dignified, and trustworthy,”
and he adopted the motto “All the news that’s fit to print” for The Times.
(It still appears every day at the top of the front page.)
Historians learn about the past from clues found
in primary source documents such as Horace
Greeley’s autobiography. Read the excerpt and
underline all clues that tell you when and where
this story took place. Then select a news article
from the newspaper and underline the clues that
4
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tell you when and where the news event being
reported took place.
NOTE: The Teacher’s Guide expands on this
activity with additional practice exercises
analyzing primary source documents.
Cabin Boys
B
oys might also leave
the farm for a life at
sea. The great cities
of the colonies — Boston,
New York, Philadelphia
and Charleston, S.C. —
were all ports, and 9 out
of 10 settlers in the 13
colonies lived within 50
miles of the ocean.
The way history is presented often
depends on who tells the story. Select
one of the stories on these pages and
identify the different people
connected to the story, both those
telling the story and those in the story.
Retell the incident from the point of
view of one of the other people.
Find an article in the newspaper
about child labor today. Identify the
different people or groups of people
involved in the news event being
reported. Rewrite the article as a
memoir from the point of view of one
of the people in the article.
From Melville’s
book, “Redburn”:
“As I was standing looking round me,
the chief mate approached in a great
hurry about something, and seeing me
NOTE: The Teacher’s Guide provides
a reproducible Activity Worksheet for
in his way, cried out ‘Ashore with you,
this activity.
you young loafer! There’s no stealing
here; sail
Cabin boy was the
away, I tell
entry-level job for
you, with
young men 12-to-16
that shooting
(1819 –1891)
years of age who
jacket!’
Herman Melville, author of “Moby
dreamed of going to
“Upon this
Dick; or, The Whale” (1851) and other
sea and becoming
I retreated,
novels of the seafaring life, wrote
ship’s
saying that I
captains.
from personal
Some were was going
experience.
out in the
sons, sons
“Redburn”
of friends,
ship as a
(1849), based
or nephews sailor.
on his time as a
of the
“‘A sailor!’
cabin boy on a
captains.
he cried. ‘A
whaling ship,
Their life at barber’s
was the first
sea was as
clerk, you
American book
a privileged
mean; you
to deal with the
At the beginning of the 19th century, America’s roads were terrible:
apprentice
going out in dust-choked ruts in the summer and virtually impassable in the
challenges of a
to the
the ship?
winter. The trip from Boston to New York, a distance of 250 miles,
boy becoming
ship’s
What, in that might take a week or more by coach, but with good winds, a sailing
a man.
officers. Other cabin
jacket? Hang ship could make it in under two days.
boys came from poor
families who couldn’t
me, I hope
pig-pen in the long-boat; it has not been cleaned out since last voyage.
afford to keep them at
the old man hasn’t been shipping any
And bear a hand about it, d’ye hear; there’s them pigs there waiting to be
home. Still other boys
more greenhorns like you — he’ll make
might have had a judge a shipwreck of it if he has. But this is the way
put in; come, be off about it, now.’
suggest they go to sea nowadays; to save a few
“Was this then the beginning of my sea-career? Set to cleaning out
when they ran afoul of
a pig-pen, the very first thing?”
dollars in seamen’s wages,
the law. These boys
they
think
nothing
of
got the dirty jobs, like
shipping a parcel of
cleaning the pigsties
farmers and clodhoppers
and chicken coops,
and baby-boys. What’s your
and life under a cruel
Life was often
name, Pillgarlic?’
captain or with an
harsh for cabin
unkind crew could be
“‘Redburn,’ said I.
boys, who
very hard indeed.
‘A pretty handle to a man,
worked as
that; scorch you to take
servants for the
hold of it; haven’t you got any other?’
captain and
‘Wellingborough,’ said I.
everyone else on
“‘Worse yet. Who had the baptizing of ye? Why
board. Beatings
didn’t they call you Jack, or Jill, or something
were common
short and handy? But I’ll baptize you over again.
and there was
D’ye hear, sir, henceforth your name is Buttons.
seldom any
time off.
And now do you go, Buttons, and clean out that
Herman Melville
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5
Mill Girls
F
rom the mid-18th through
the early 20th century,
technological innovations
(like the cotton gin and the
steam engine) occurred at such a
rapid rate that this period is
often referred to as “the
Industrial Revolution” or “the
Industrial Age.” Many products
that had been made at home by
hand could now be produced in
factories by machines. As the
Industrial Revolution advanced,
children — some as young as age
five — tended these machines in
increasing numbers, especially
in the textile industry. Long
viewed as assets in a primarily
agricultural economy, children
were now seen as factory
workers for an industrialized
society.
Mill Girls
Young children started working in
16 and 25. Harriet was only 10
when she began working at one of the
textile mills in the early 19th century
factories as a “doffer”: removing the
when mill owners hired entire families
full bobbins from the spinning frames
who worked and lived at mill sites. The
and replacing them with empty ones.
job of “factory girl” was considered a
While she and the other young girls
lowly occupation. However, the textile
working as doffers might work for only
mill in Lowell, Mass., was different. In
15 minutes of every hour, they still had
Lowell, company owners offered young
to be on the job for the full 14-hour day.
women top wages to work in their
The Lowell experiment was shortfactories, and built
lived. The company owners cut wages,
boarding houses for
and then cut them again. In 1836, when
them to live in. In an age
Harriet was only 11, she joined with
in which women had
Lewis Wickes Hine’s photographs helped change child-labor laws. other Lowell mill girls and walked off
virtually no economic
A Hine photo from 1910 shows Addie Laird, who was somewhere the job in protest — one of the first
rights or status in
between 10- and 12-years-old at the time, working as a spinner in labor actions in American history. The
society, the Lowell
a cotton mill in North Pownal, Vt. This photo was later reproduced mills found replacement workers and
on a stamp to commemorate child-labor reform.
mills offered them
the strike was broken. Within the next
respectable
few years, boatloads of Irish
employment, a decent income, and educational, cultural immigrants began arriving in New York, followed by immigrants from
southern and eastern Europe. These immigrants provided America’s
and social opportunities. In exchange, they gave the
textile industry with masses of women and children who would work for
mills 14 hours of work a day, 73
less money and under the worst working conditions.
hours
a
week.
The first group
of women
Robinson wrote of the strike of 1836:
working at
“My own recollection of this first strike (or ‘turn out’ as it was called)
Lowell learned
… is very vivid … When the day came on which the girls were to turn
new skills, formed the
(1825-1911)
out, those in the upper rooms started first, and so many of them left that
first-ever Women’s Club and
Harriet Robinson came to Lowell
our mill was at once shut down. Then, when the girls in my room stood
produced a literary magazine
when her mother moved there to
irresolute, uncertain what to do … and not one of them having the
called the “Lowell Offering.”
run one of the boarding houses.
courage to lead off, I … became impatient, and started on ahead, saying,
Published between 1840 and
According to Harriet, in the early
with childish bravado, ‘I don’t care what you do, I am going to turn out,
1849, the magazine was written
days of Lowell Mills, the working
whether any one else does or not;’ and I marched out, and was followed
by mill girls, or as Harriet
girls were mostly between the ages of by the others. …”
Robinson called
Harriet Hanson
Robinson
them, “poets of
the loom,
spinners of
verse, artists of
factory life.”
6
While expanding options for young women, the
Industrial Revolution also created problems for
them. Create a chart that compares the life of a girl
working in a textile mill with that of a girl working
on a farm.
Search current issues of the newspaper for
stories that feature women. Create a chart that
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compares women’s roles today with women’s roles
in the early years of the Industrial Revolution. Write
an essay explaining what has changed and what
has stayed the same.
NOTE: The Teacher’s Guide provides an Activity
Worksheet for this project.
.L
St
aw
eR
nc
re
ive
r
Canal Boys
Oswego
anal
Whitehall
Oswego Canal
Erie Canal
Tonawanda
Buffalo
Utica
Syracuse
Erie C
anal Waterford
Schenectady
Troy
Albany
e
Eri
Montour Falls
Montour Falls
ive
r
Watkins
Hudson R
e
Lak
Cayuga-Seneca
Canal
C
Cha lain
mp
Lake Ontario
T
he Erie Canal’s completion in 1825 changed
America forever. Connecting New York and the
Hudson River with the Great Lakes, the Canal
opened lands west of the Allegheny Mountains for
settlement, significantly lowered the shipping cost
of goods and established New York’s harbor as the
center of American commerce.
One of the jobs of a canal boy was to drive the
mules that pulled the 100-ton canal boats. They
would walk along the towpath and also help open
and close the lock gates.
Canal Lingo
Poughkeepsie
Muleskinner: Mule driver
Towpath: Path where mules
walk when pulling boats
Whiffletree: Bar that linked mules
with the boats
New York
Flying light: Boat traveling empty
Hoggee: Young boy mule driver
Hoodledasher: Train of boats with empty
boats tied to full boats
Mud-larked: A boat
stuck in mud
Snubbing
post: Post for
tying up boats.
The Life of a Canal Boy
Canal boys drove
Others overworked the
boys, beat them and
and cared for the
denied them food and
mules that towed
even medicine —
canal boats, often
trying to force them
walking 20 miles a day.
A canal boy’s typical
to run away so the
captain did not have
workday began
to pay them.
around three in the
Search the Help
Most families lived
morning and ended
Wanted ads in the
on
their boat all year.
about 10 at night.
newspaper for jobs that
There were two
Boating season lasted
would and would not
from April to
types of canal boys: a
have existed in the early
November. During
son of the boat-owner
1800’s. Study how Help
the winter, hundreds
and a “bound-out”
Wanted ads are written.
Rewrite the Mule Driver
of canal boats were
child from a poor
job posting as a modern
family that could not
tied together,
Help Wanted ad.
afford to keep him.
forming floating
communities in
Mothers on boats
major harbors like New York’s.
minded the young children, cooked,
Children labored on canals
cleaned and — when needed —
until the last canal was closed
steered the boat and led the mule.
Fathers were usually the captains.
in 1932. Without their help,
“Bound-out” boys drove the mules
canals would not have been
the mass transit system that
for captains who didn’t have
helped America become an
children. Many captains treated
industrial giant.
these kids well and paid them fairly.
This is a reproduction of what an old ad
for a mule driver might have looked like.
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7
Upon Their Bended Backs
I
help on plantations because
n the South, slave
most of the men were away
children contributed to
fighting, with many
the American economy
returning home wounded.
before the Civil War by
Slave children began
working on the
working at about the age
plantations that
of five, looking after
provided cotton for
small animals in the
textile mills such as
farmyard and helping
those in Lowell. Many
with small jobs in the
of these children had
fields. Around
been separated
their master’s
from their
homes they
families or
were
carried
firewood,
orphans.
polished brass
Slave children
doorknobs,
born on
Some children worked in the
fields, while others were sent to scrubbed
plantations
the master’s house to attend
floors, and
were forced
to the family.
fanned and
to work for
bathed their masters. Many
most of their lives, and, of
children of slave owners had
course, without pay. During
the Civil War, children were their own child-slave to dress
and attend to them.
needed more than ever to
Booker T. Washington
Henry Bibb (1815 – 1854)
(1856–1915)
Washington, born a slave, grew up to become one
of America’s foremost black educators and leaders.
In his autobiography, Washington said, “From the
time that I can remember anything, almost every day
of my life has been occupied in some kind of labor.”
He wrote:
Henry Bibb was one of a handful of escaped
slaves who wrote an autobiography. As a
child, Bibb lived on a Tennessee plantation
and worked as a servant to the plantation
owner’s daughter.
He wrote:
“During the period that I spent in slavery I was
not large enough to be of much service, still I
was occupied most of the time in cleaning
the yards, carrying water to men in the
fields, or going to the mill to which I used
to take the corn, once a week, to be
ground. … This work I always dreaded.
The heavy bag of corn would be thrown
across the back of the horse, and the
corn divided about evenly on each side;
but in some way … the corn would shift
as to become unbalanced and would fall
off the horse, and I would fall with it. As
I was not strong enough to reload the
corn upon the horse, I would have to
wait, sometimes for many hours, till a
chance passer-by came along who would
help me out of my trouble. The hours
while waiting for someone were usually
spent in crying. The time consumed in this
“She was too lazy to scratch her own head and
would often make me scratch and comb it for her. She
would at times lie on the bed, in warm weather, and
make me fan her while she slept, scratch and rub her
feet, but after a while she got sick of me and
preferred a maiden servant to do such business.”
way made me late in reaching the mill, and by
the time I got my corn ground and reached
home it would be far into the night. The road
was a lonely one, and … I was always
frightened. The woods were said to be full of
soldiers who had deserted from the army,
and I had been told that the first thing a
deserter did to a Negro boy when he found
him alone was to cut off his ears.
Besides, when I was late in
getting home I knew I would
always get a severe scolding or
a flogging.”
History books often overlook the experiences of
children in general. As for slave children, their
experiences are largely unrecorded due to the fact
that most never learned to read or write.
Find an article in a current issue of the newspaper
reporting on an event that will have an impact on the
lives of children. List the points of view of the children
8
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affected. Using facts in the article, write a first-person
account of the news event from the point of view of a
child.
NOTE: The Teacher’s Guide provides a reproducible
Activity Worksheet for this activity.
Child Stars
T
he second half of the 19th
century witnessed
enormous change in the
American theater. As cities grew
larger and Americans had more
leisure time, many of them
turned to the theater for
entertainment. Some
performances, however, were
more informal: Dancing, singing
and playing instruments (usually
home-made) on city street
corners, young performers put on
their own shows, and then
“passed the hat.”
While entertainment was not a
very lucrative occupation for most
child performers, two had great
success. These excerpts from their
obituaries tell the stories of the
fortunes they amassed as child
stars of their day.
The obituaries of child stars on this
page and the autobiographies of slave
children on the previous page provide
facts and opinions about the very different
experiences of a number of children in the
19th century. Underline the facts and circle
the opinions in the passages you’ve just
read. Discuss the value each provides to
an understanding of American history.
Find entertainment reviews and ads in
the newspaper featuring young movie,
theater and TV stars. Underline the facts
and circle the opinions. Select one star
and write a newspaper-style obituary for
that star reflecting on his or her career.
What would the obituary you’ve written tell
people in the future about life in presentday America?
NOTE: The Teacher’s Guide provides
a reproducible Activity Worksheet for
this project.
Lotta Crabtree
Cordelia Howard
(1847-1924)
(1848-1941)
From her obituary:
From her obituary:
“[Cordelia’s father, George C.] Howard
presented the play, [‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’]
for eight years in this country and abroad
and retired to
Cambridge with
a fortune. Mrs.
MacDonald [Cordelia’s married name] continued
the role of Little Eva for those eight years, and
retired from the stage with her family when they
came to Cambridge to live. She was then 12
years old. …
“She had always, since her retirement from the
role she created, remained a keen student of
everything that transpired in connection with
Uncle Tom. … Many times since her retirement
she had declared her preference for obscurity, but so
universal was the appeal of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s
old play that any one connected with its production
could hardly achieve anonymity.
“For decades demands had been made
on Mrs. MacDonald to give her presence
to this and to that version of the epic,
but on each occasion she gently, but
firmly refused her petitioners.
“‘I’m afraid I couldn’t have much to
contribute to the stage,’ she would
smilingly protest. ‘I have never had a
desire to return to the theatre except as a
member of the audience.’”
“Starred as ‘Lotta,’ Charlotte
Mignon Crabtree sang, danced and
played herself into the hearts of
the theatergoers of a generation ago
all over the United States, and
in 1891 retired, at the
height of her success,
with a fortune estimated at more than $2,000,000.
“Over the bookshop which her father, John Ashworth
Crabtree, kept in Broadway,
New York, the little
comedienne was born Nov.
7, 1847. The bookseller was
one of those who followed
the gold rush to California,
taking his family with him,
and it was on the Pacific
Coast that Lotta scored her
first childish triumphs. She
made her debut as an
actress when only 6 years
old at Petaluma, Calif., when
she played Gertrude in: ‘The Loan of a Lover.’
“At the head of her own company, at the age of 7,
‘La Petite Lotta’ played one-night stands
throughout the mining region and in those days
scored her biggest night at a rough Nevada camp
where, after a rather hostile reception, she finally so
won the hearts of the miners that they pitched bags of
gold dust and nuggets at her feet.”
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9
When Childhood Became a Cause
F
rom the 1840’s through the 1880’s, waves of
immigrants poured into America’s Atlantic Coast
cities. As they struggled to get settled in their new
country, some families abandoned their children,
either because they didn’t have enough money to
support them or could not supervise them because
of the long hours they worked. The Children’s
From the “Life of the Street Rats”
Children’s Champion:
Charles Loring Brace (1826-1938)
A Methodist minister, Charles
Loring Brace saw the problems the
Industrial Revolution inflicted
upon children in the slums of New
York City.
During the Industrial
Revolution, children played an
important role in America’s
economy, but they faced serious
problems as a result. Factories
were often located in slum
buildings, cellars or attics. Hours
were long, pay was low, and
working conditions were
dangerous and often unhealthy.
Because of the way children (and
many adults) were exploited, these
factories became known as
“sweatshops.”
Many factories hired
children because
they could
Aid Society was established in New York in 1853 to help
these children. The Society estimated that more than 30,000
children lived on New York City streets in 1855. These
abandoned children — known as “urchins,” “street
Arabs” or “street rats” — sold newspapers, sewed
clothes, collected rags and worked in sweatshops
to survive.
perform some types of
detail work better than
adults. In addition, they could
be paid lower wages than adults,
were more easily intimidated than
adults, and were difficult for
unions to organize.
In 1853, Brace helped establish
the Children’s Aid Society. Today,
the Children’s Aid Society helps
more than 100,000 New York City
children and their families every
year with health, education and
counseling programs, along with
summer camps, job training, and
adoption and foster-care services.
“Seventeen years
ago, my attention had
been called to the
extraordinarily degraded
condition of the children in a
district lying on the west side of
the city. … A Certain block,
called, ‘Misery Row’ … was the
main seed-bed of crime and
poverty in the quarter … Here
the poor obtained wretched
rooms at a comparatively low
rent … The parents were
invariably given to hard
drinking, and the children were
sent out to beg or to steal.
Besides them, other children,
History is a sequence of events. By understanding
what happened in the past, it may be possible to
avoid repeating the problems of the past. Using the
information in this guide, create a timeline that shows
the sequence of events that led to the formation of the
Children’s Aid Society.
Then, from your collection of newspaper reports on
10
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who were orphans, or who had
run away from drunkards’
homes, or had been discharged
on the docks nearby, drifted into
the quarter, as if attracted by the
atmosphere of crime and laziness
that prevailed in the
neighborhood … They were mere
children, and kept life together
by all sorts of street-jobs—
helping the brewery laborers,
blackening boots, sweeping
sidewalks, and the like.”
child labor today, select one country you’ve read
about. Place the working children of that country along
the timeline of the evolution of an economy from
agrarian to industrial.
NOTE: The Teacher’s Guide expands this activity into
a writing assignment.
The Orphan Trains
T
he Children’s
process at the next
Aid Society
town. Caring families
used “Orphan
took in some of the
Trains” to rescue
children. Other
homeless kids who
children were treated
worked in sweatshops
like slave laborers.
in the big cities of the
Between 1853 and
East Coast. Society
1929 the Orphan
agents gathered
Trains carried as
Some records say
homeless children
many as 200,000 kids
that William H.
and put them on
west for adoption.
Bonney, better
trains bound for the
The goal was to mold
known as Billy
West. Agents traveled the Kid, rode an the youngsters into
orphan train.
ahead of the trains,
productive adults
visiting towns along
through hard work,
the route and advertising
clean living and moral
that children were available
family life. It worked for
for adoption. When an
Andrew Burke and John
Orphan Train pulled into a
Brady, who later became the
station, the children were
governors of North Dakota
questioned and examined to
and Alaska. It did not
see if they would make good
work for the outlaw Billy
farm hands or shop clerks.
the Kid, who, according
Strong, attractive, healthy
to some accounts, also
kids usually found homes.
rode an orphan
The others returned to the
train.
train and repeated the
Betty Lou Wade
(née Gladys Marie King*) Remembers:
“An old man and woman had their
arms around the shoulders of my
brother and sister. ‘We’ll take these
two,’ they said. ‘What about my
little sister?’ my big sister asked
them. ‘She’s too little to milk a cow,’
the old man replied. Then they were
all gone. …
“I was three years old with no
one. Then the tall, dark, nicelooking man who had made the
remark about me at the train
station stepped up to me and said,
‘Do you want to be my little girl?’
“That’s all I remember about that
episode, but I do remember living in
the hotel, having a nursemaid to
take care of me and
getting anything
and everything I
wanted, for the man
was the manager of
the hotel, and he
and his wife had
never had any
children.
“I was
brought around
to reality a
couple of times
a year by being
taken out to
the farm to
visit my
By the middle of
brother and sister the 19th century,
for the weekend in it was estimated
Petit, Kentucky, a
that as many as
few miles from
30,000 children
Owensboro. They
lived on the
were only a few
streets of
years older than I
New York.
was, but they had
to do many chores. They chopped
tobacco, killed tobacco worms,
milked 24 cows, and did chores
around the house, barn and garden.
I can remember trying to help them,
but I only seemed to get in the way.”
*Betty Lou Wade’s adoptive parents
changed her name to Gladys
Marie King.
From the
streets of
New York City,
children were
sent west
on Orphan Trains
to find new
families.
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11
Shedding Light on Child Labor
A
round the turn of the 20th century, attitudes toward
child labor began to change. The National Child
Labor Committee, the women’s suffrage
movement, labor unions, the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People (N.A.A.C.P.) and
other social reform groups worked to get children
off the streets and into
settlement houses. They also
tried to reduce the demand
for child workers by arguing
that children should not be
viewed as simply economic
assets: They are children, and
should be going to school
while they’re children, to
get the education they
will need as adults and
citizens. These
advocates pioneered
techniques of mass
Jacob Riis
political action we
(1849-1914)
are familiar with
With his 1890 book,
today, including
“How the Other Half
investigations by
Lives,” Jacob Riis
experts, the use
used photos and
of photography
evocative descriptions
to take readers into
to dramatize
parts of New York
children’s working
City they had long
conditions,
ignored. What they
leafleting, and mass
saw was a shocking
mailings to reach the
portrait of people’s
American public.
desperate lives,
Journalist Jacob
especially the children
who lived in New York
Riis helped reshape
City’s tenements. On
American attitudes
this page and the
toward child
following page, you’ll
labor. Once an
find examples of Riis’
impoverished
images and words—
immigrant (from
images and words so
Denmark)
powerful that they
inspired many people
himself, Riis
to fight for the reform
spent time as a
of child-labor laws.
police reporter
for The New
York Tribune — experiences that gave
him a special understanding of the
plight of children. He became an
activist for the reform of child labor
laws and advocated for better
housing, lighting, sanitation, parks
and playgrounds in the nation’s cities.
“I Scrubs”
“Katie, Who Keeps House in West
Forty-ninth Street. ‘What kind of work
do you do?’ I asked. ‘I scrubs,’ she
replied promptly, and her look
guaranteed that what she scrubbed
came out clean.”
12
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“Minding the Baby”
“Of Susie’s hundred little companions in the
alley — playmates they could scarcely be
called — some made artificial flowers, some
paper boxes, while the boys earned money
at ‘shinin’, or selling newspapers. The
smaller girls ‘minded the baby,’ leaving
mother free to work …”
Susie
“Little
at Her Work”
“Little Susie ... Every
morning she drags
down to her Cherry
Street Court heavy
bundles of the little
tin boxes much too
heavy for her twelve
years, and when she
has finished …
earning a few
pennies that way,
takes her place at
the bench and
pastes two hundred
before it is time for
evening school.”
“Night School
in the Seventh
Avenue Lodging
House”
The Numbers
Jacob Riis gave the world a glimpse into the
lives of the millions of children who spent
their days struggling to earn a meager living.
The 1900 census showed that 1.8 million
children between the ages of 10 and 15 were
working in the United States — about 18% of
the country’s children. Ten years later, that
number increased to more than 1.9 million
children. Many younger children who worked
in mills, factories
and on the streets
Average Salaries for
were not counted. If
child workers in 1873
they had been
Children working in tobacco
counted, experts
factories earned $1 per week.
estimate that more
Children working in envelope
than two million of
factories earned $3 per week.
America’s children
(Run by The
Children’s Aid Society)
“One night I took the
picture of my little
vegetable peddling
friend, Edward, asleep on
the front bench in
evening school. Edward
was nine years old and
an orphan, but hard at
work every day earning
his own living by
shouting from a
peddler’s cart. He could
not be made to sit for his
picture, and I took him at
a disadvantage …”
were employed.
Girls who worked at cutting
feathers earned $3.50 per week.
Although most
child workers had
someone dependent on them, such as a sick
mother or an elderly father, it wasn’t easy for
them to support their families. Children were
paid less than adults. They received few
vacations and no sick days. In addition, they
were often fined for mistakes and had to pay
for their transportation and in many cases,
their room and board, which could cost as
much as $4 per week.
“Tenement Yard”
“I counted the other day the little ones, up to
ten years or so, in a Bayard Street tenement …
yard … There was about as much light in the
‘yard’ as in the average cellar … I had counted
one hundred and twenty-eight in forty families.”
“‘The Five Points House of Industry’
accomplished what no machinery of government
availed to do. Sixty thousand children have been
rescued by them from the streets. ... It is one of the
most touching sights to see a score of babies, rescued
from homes of brutality and desolation ... saying their
prayers in the nursery at bedtime.”
Historians interpret the past using visual as well as text
documents. Study the photographs by Jacob Riis and
write a paragraph with as many details as you can.
Describe the people, the setting, the event and any
artifacts that you see. Think about what is happening
beyond the edges of the photograph.
Select a news photograph in the newspaper. Describe
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it in detail, just as you described the photographs above.
Then write a paragraph explaining what it tells you about
the situation it is reporting.
NOTE: The Teacher’s Guide provides additional
background and ideas for extending this assignment.
13
The Child Labor Debate
C
hild labor wasn’t seen as a
problem before the Industrial
Revolution. Families and
communities were largely selfsufficient in agrarian economies, and
everyone contributed by working. As
local economies grew, children were
still an essential part of the work force.
Some were able to hold a
job and complete their
education at home with
the support of their
families. Others learned
to become independent
when they left home for
jobs as apprentices, cabin
boys or mill workers.
Even after the abuses
that resulted from
industrialization became
well known, many people
didn’t see child labor as a
problem that needed
regulation. Although we take childlabor laws for granted today, the debate
over these laws lasted for more than 30
years — well into the first half of the
20th century.
Some experts believe that
industrialization itself ultimately
put an end to the very
problems it created.
Rising standards of
living and technical
innovations
The arguments on the next page are
representative of those voiced during America’s long
debate over child labor. Look for examples of similar
arguments being made today in articles from the
newspapers that you’ve collected. Write an editorial
supporting one side of the debate. Use information
14
NEWSPAPER LOGO
reduced the need for child
workers. Automation
replaced, and continues
to replace, many
workers. The Great
Depression of the 1930’s also
played a role in reducing the
demand for child labor: With
unemployment
so high, jobs once
scorned and left to
children were
suddenly coveted
by adults.
After decades of
debate on the subject, the
Fair Labor Standards Act
of 1938 became the first
federal law to place
limitations on child
labor. (It also established
the first national
minimum-wage
standards.) It effectively prohibited the
employment of children under age
16 in manufacturing and mining. The
Act was amended in 1949 to include
prohibitions on children working
in agriculture, textiles and other
industries.
Was it social concern for the
welfare of children that eventually
resulted in the passage of these
laws, or the changing nature of a
more modern industrialized
economy? What do you think? What
other factors might have played a role
in the passage of these laws?
from both these historical documents and the
contemporary reports from the newspaper.
NOTE: The Teacher’s Guide provides additional
historical information and critical-thinking activities.
Voices Against
Child Labor
“
“
Those industries which coin into
profits the vitality of childhood
— and leave to the world, for its mercy
and support, wrecks of manhood — rob
the country of something which they
can never return.”
—Robert Hunter, “Poverty,” 1904
We have no right to the labor of
children … It is one of the
worst evils of the present day and
should be corrected. If children are
driven to toil before they have
received a sound education and
before their bodies are grown, where
are we to look for the future citizens
of the country?”
W
hile child labor laws were adopted in the
United States in the 1930’s and 1940’s, child
labor continues to exist around the world.
These contemporary images from the United Nations
photo archives dramatize the ongoing debate between
the idea that childhood
should be a time of play
and learning, and the
view of children as
economic assets. How do
each of these pictures
support the arguments of
both sides of the childlabor debate?
“
“
“
“
In some less developed countries
children may have to work for
family economic survival. Better that
they work and eat than starve.”
—Richard B. Freeman, Harvard economist, “A
Hard-Headed Look at Labor Standards,” 1994
If a child is not trained to useful
work before the age of 18, we shall
have a nation of paupers and thieves.”
—Letter to the New York Chamber of
Commerce Bulletin, Bulletin XVI, No. 5
(December 1924)
The mills of Georgia are
dependent for their labor upon
poor white people who were, as a rule,
tenants on farms. Children are brought
to the mills by their parents because the
work is lighter, the pay is better, and
they have better opportunities for
improvement and enjoyment than on
the farms. I appeal to the legislature and
to the state on behalf of these people
not to interfere with their privilege to
work when and where they will.”
—William Jennings Bryan, Democratic
candidate for President, 1896, 1900 and 1908
Chicago Record-Herald (Sept. 7, 1906)
If you continue to use the labor
of children as the treatment for
the social disease of poverty, you will
have both poverty and child labor to
the end of time.”
Voices In Favor
of Child Labor
A boy sifts through trash for
items of value to sell in
Columbia.
—Mary Applewhite Bacon, “Child Labor in
the Cotton Mills of Georgia,” Charities
(July 18, 1903)
—Grace Abbott, testimony to the U.S. House
of Representatives on the proposed Child
Labor Constitutional Amendment, 1924
“
“
The work of the world has to be
done; and these children have
their share … We don’t want to rear
up a generation of nonworkers, what
we want is workers and more
workers.”
“
If we continue to sanction
premature child labor, we not
only degrade and lower the standard
of citizenship, but we prevent that
future growth, that development of
American civilization … we must
give to the world in order to
contribute to the world’s riches.”
—Elizabeth Fraser, “Children and Work”
Saturday Evening Post (April 4, 1925)
Young boys carrying bricks at
a construction site in New
Delhi, India.
—Felix Adler, philosopher, social activist
and educational pioneer. Speech to Third
Annual Meeting of the National Child
Labor Committee, 1906
A boy from the Solomon
Islands plays with a
homemade truck.
It’s as easy to teach a boy to love
work with the result of capability
as it is to let him drift into habits of
idleness with the result of incapability.”
—Daniel Augustus Tompkins, cotton-mill
owner, Quoted in “A Builder of the New
South,” 1920
Child Labor Today
“Today, child labor has been
virtually eliminated from the
American workplace. Or has it?
“Violations of the child-labor laws
continue in the economically
impoverished sectors of the nation,
notably among the migrant
agricultural workers. Employers in
New York’s garment industry
employ the children of illegal
immigrants in an effort to compete
with imported low-wage goods from
other countries. Recently, the laws
pertaining to work done at home
have been liberalized, increasing
the possibility of child labor law
infringement. Many school
children work beyond the allowed
number of hours or hold
prohibited jobs. One study has
shown that proportionally nearly
as many children in America work
today as at the turn of the 20th
century, reminding us that child
Throughout history and today, the news media has
shed light on the conditions of the living and working
conditions children experience. From your collection of
newspaper articles, select one country to profile. Make a
chart listing reasons why children in that particular country
should be utilized as workers and reasons why they
should not.
The United States led the world in the transition from
an agrarian to industrial economy. Use your study of
NEWSPAPER LOGO
labor hasn’t disappeared.”
[Hugh D Hindman, “Child Labor:
An American History,” 2002]
In addition to the thousands of
children who work in the United
States, millions of children around
the world work in agriculture, as
domestics, and in trades,
manufacturing and services. Most
of these children overseas have
few rights and protections because
of weak laws and lax enforcement.
the impact of this transition in U.S. history to write an
editorial describing the situation of children in the
country you’ve chosen and what history suggests could
happen there in the future. Include recommendations of
possible steps to take in your editorial.
NOTE: The Teacher’s Guide provides a timeline on
child-labor reform and suggestions for holding a class
debate on the topic of child labor.
15
Free the Children
T
he International
Labor Organization
(ILO) has estimated
that 250 million children
between the ages of
five and 14 work in
developing countries —
at least 120 million on
a full-time basis. Sixtyone percent of these
are in Asia, 32 percent
in Africa, and seven
percent in Latin
America. Most
working children in
rural areas are found in
agriculture; many children
work as domestics; urban
children work in trade
and services, with fewer
in manufacturing and
construction.
— Human Rights Watch
For more information
on the topic of child
labor issues:
Fr e e t h e C h i l d re n
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
http://www.freethechildren.org
H u m a n R i g h t s Wa t ch
New York, New York
http://www.hrw.org/children/
labor.htm
I n t e r n a t i o n a l I n i t i a t iv e t o E n d
C h i l d L ab o r
Arlington, Virginia
http://www.endchildlabor.org/
G l o b a l M a r ch A g a i n s t
C h i l d L ab o r
New Delhi, India
http://globalmarch.org/index.php
Supplement Credits
This student supplement was
developed for The New York Times
Knowledge Network by Kid Scoop.
Editor: Vicki Whiting
Contributing writers: Jim Silverman,
Risa Aratyr and Don Kaplan
Production Manager: Vivien
Whittington
Design: Dawn Armato-Brehm
Special thanks to Ellen Doukoullos
for her contribution to this project.
This student supplement is an
educational resource from The New
York Times Knowledge Network. It did
not involve the editing or reporting
staff of The New York Times.
16
leadership and action. Its goal
In 1995, 12-year-old Craig
is to help children escape
Kielburger became a
from poverty and exploitation
spokesman for children’s
— and to free them from the
rights. He was searching for
idea that they are powerless
the comics in
to bring about positive change
the local
in their lives and the lives of
paper when a
their peers.
front-page
Free the Children is
article caught
unlike
any other children’s
his attention.
charity in that it is an
It told the
organization by, of, and
story of a
for children
young boy
that fully
from Pakistan
embodies the
who was sold
notion that
Craig
Kielburger
addresses
heads
of
state
and
into bondage
children and
civic
leaders
at
the
State
of
the
World
Forum.
as a carpet
young people
weaver,
themselves
escaped and was murdered
can be leaders in creating a more,
for speaking out against child labor. Kielburger
equitable and sustainable world.
gathered a group of friends and started the
organization Free the Children.
Today, Free the Children is an international
Craig Kielburger receives the
network of children helping children at local, national
Roosevelt Freedom Award, 1998,
and international levels through representation,
with Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Text Citations:
Cover: Poem by Elizabeth Watson, published in the
magazine The Survey 28 (Sept. 28, 1912)
Page 3: Asa Sheldon, “The Life of Asa G. Sheldon:
Wilmington Farmer. In two arrangements.” Woburn,
Mass.: E.T. Moody, printer, 1862.
Eric Sloane, “Diary of an Early American Boy, Noah
Blake, 1805.” New York, NY: W. Funk, 1962.
Page 4: John Tebbel, “The Compact History of the
American Newspaper.” New York: Hawthorn Books,
Inc., 1963.
Horace Greeley, “Recollections of a Busy Life.” New
York: J.B. Ford & Company, 1869.
Doris Raber, “Printer’s Devil to Publisher, Adolph S.
Ochs of The New York Times.” Hensonville, N.Y.:
Black Dome Press, 1963.
Page 5: Herman Melville, “Redburn: His First Voyage.
Being the Sailor-boy Confessions and Reminiscences
of the Son-of-a-Gentleman, in the Merchant Service.”
New York: Harper & Brothers, 1849.
Lotta Crabtree’s obituary. The New York Times, Sept.
26, 1924.
Page 6: Harriet Hanson Robinson, “Look and Spindle
or Life Among the Early Mill Girls,” New York: T.Y.
Crowell, 1898.
Page 10: Charles Loring Brace, “The Dangerous
Classes of New York and Twenty Years’ Work Among
Them.” New York: Wynkoop & Hallenbeck, 1872.
“The Lowell Offering,” New England Magazine, Dec. 7,
1889.
Page 11: “The Orphan Train Collection,” edited by D.
Bruce Ayler of the Orphan Train Heritage Society of
America, Inc/ (http://www.orphantrainriders.com/)
Page 7: Lance E. Metz, historian, National Canal
Museum, Easton, Pa.
Page 8: Henry Bibb, “Narrative of the Life and
Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave.” New
York: Published by the author, 1849.
Booker T. Washington, “Up From Slavery: An
Autobiography.” New York: Doubleday, Page & Co.,
1901.
Page 12-13:Jacob A. Riis, “The Children of the Poor,”
New York; Scribner’s Sons, 1892.
Jacob A. Riis, “How the Other Half Lives: Studies
Among the Tenements of New York,” New York;
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1890.
“Little Laborers of New York.” Harper’s New Monthly
Magazine 47.279 (August 1873).
Page 9: Cordelia Howard’s obituary. The New York
Times, Aug 11. 1941.
Page 15: Hugh D Hindman, “Child Labor: An
American History.” Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2002.
Cover: (center, bottom left) Lewis Wickes
Hine/CORBIS. (bottom) Russell Lee/CORBIS.
right) Berkshire Athenaeum, Pittsfield,
Massachusettes. (bottom right) Ex-classics.com.
Page 2: (top) Wisconsin Historical Society, photo
by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, WHi2280. (top
left) Dawn Brehm. (bottom right) Picture
Copyright 1953 by Garth Williams, Copyright
renewed 1981 by Garth Williams. Used by
permission of Harper Collins Publishers. (bottom
left) CORBIS.
Page 6: (center) Bettmann/CORBIS. (top right)
Lowell Historical Society. (bottom left)
Bettmann/CORBIS.
Page 10: (center) WIGenWeb Project, a part of
the USGenWeb Project Orphan Train. (bottom)
Kansas Historical Society.
Picture Credits:
Page 3: (top right) Bettmann/CORBIS. (left)
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Page 4: (center) Lake County Museum/CORBIS.
(bottom left) The New Castle Historical Society.
(bottom right) Bettmann/CORBIS.
Page 5: (center) Bettmann/CORBIS. (left)
National Maritime Museum, London. (center
Page 7: (center) Paul A. Souders/CORBIS.
(center right) Courtesy of Minisink Historical
Society. (bottom) Jeff Schinkel.
Page 8: (top left) Picture History. (top right)
Picture History. (bottom left) Library of Congress,
LC-USZ62-25624. (bottom right) Used with the
permission of The University Library, The
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Page 9: (center) Brown University Library.
(bottom left) Harvard Theatre Collection. (bottom
right) www.historichwy49.com.
Page 11: (top right) Bettmann/CORBIS. (top
left) Bettmann/CORBIS.
Page 12: Jacob Riis Portrait: CORBIS. (center,
top right, bottom) Museum of the City of New
York.
Page 13: (all ) Museum of the City of New York.
Page 14: (top left, top center, top right) Lewis
Wickes Hine/CORBIS. (bottom) Courtesy of
BoondocksNet.com.
Page 15: (all) UN Photo
Page 16: (all) Free the Children.
NEWSPAPERS & CHILDREN: a formula for action
Craig Kielburger learned about modernday exploitation of children when he was
searching through the newspaper for the
comics. A newspaper article brought the
world beyond his neighborhood into his
living room. And, at 12 years old, he
discovered that he could make a difference
in places thousands of miles from his home.
NEWSPAPER LOGO
Comparing the role of children in
American history and the lives of children
today offers insight into both the past and
the present. Now that you are armed with
information about the lives of children
around the world today and lessons from
the past, create a plan of action to educate
others about child labor.