Flashlight photos of 5 boys who work in Augusta (Ga.) cotton mill. Supt. refused to let me go through the mill so I went there at 6 P.M. and under cover of darkness got these boys as they came out. Then we went out back of the bill boards and took the photo. 3 of the smallest of there 5 boys been there 3 years. 1 other for 4 yrs. Many children in this mill. I saw about 25 boys & girls from 9 to 14 – Vintage Photo Print
(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)
Description
This rare historic photograph captures Flashlight photos of 5 boys who work in Augusta (Ga.) cotton mill. Supt. refused to let me go through the mill so I went there at 6 P.M. and under cover of darkness got these boys as they came out. Then we went out back of the bill boards and took the photo. 3 of the smallest of there 5 boys been there 3 years. 1 other for 4 yrs. Many children in this mill. I saw about 25 boys & girls from 9 to 14 in remarkable detail. It comes from the collections of the Library of Congress, scanned from the original and carefully restored.
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Flashlight photos of 5 boys who work in Augusta (Ga.) cotton mill. Supt. refused to let me go through the mill so I went there at 6 P.M. and under cover of darkness got these boys as they came out. Then we went out back of the bill boards and took the photo. 3 of the smallest of there 5 boys been there 3 years. 1 other for 4 yrs. Many children in this mill. I saw about 25 boys & girls from 9 to 14
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Five boys leaving an Augusta, Georgia, cotton mill are lit by flashlight in this January 1909 picture, made after dark at 6 p.m. because the superintendent refused the photographer entry. Lewis Hine, working for the National Child Labor Committee, caught the boys as they came out and then took the picture behind a row of billboards. The caption notes that three of the smallest boys had worked at the mill for three years and another for four, and that about 25 boys and girls aged 9 to 14 worked there. Images like this were used to press for limits on child labor in Southern factories.
| Created / published | 1909 January 14. |
|---|---|
| Medium | 1 photographic print. |
| Genre | Photographic prints. |
| Notes | Title from NCLC caption card. In album: Mills. Hine no. 0489. |
| Subjects | Boys. Textile mill workers. Cotton industry.United States--Georgia--Augusta. |
| Source | Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division |
| Original scan | 4,096 × 3,275 px · prints to 14 × 11 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | AMZ-SOTP-HPA-183380 |
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