Our scholarship committee was quite impressed with Kyle Monette's involvement in the community and excellent essay on Lewis Hine. A young activist, Kyle has been raising money for diabetes research and even helped with the introduction of a state bill to aid in the research. He will graduate from Mililani High School in Mililani, Hawaii and plans to attend the University of Hawaii.

Kyle Monette's Essay:

A leader who I admired the most who stood up for working families and labor unions was Lewis Hine.   His photographs were significant in leading to the demise of the power of corporations by exposing inhumane working conditions for women and children and the growth of unions.   Driven by profits and no regard for the health and safety of women and children,  they offered nothing but poor wages, longer working hours, and no educational opportunities.  Because women and children were viewed as a commodity and more manageable, cheaper to use and less likely to strike, employers used them in hazardous industries including mines, glass factories, canneries, textiles, etc.    However, since labor unions were the only organizations defending the rights of women and children, Hine’s photographs help to elevate the importance of labor unions in defending the rights of all skilled and unskilled workers.  His photographs also revealed an abusive and ugly side to corporate America that federal courts could not deny. 

 Lewis Hine began his career as a sociological photographer in 1906 for the National Child Labor Committee.  Hine was so moved by the plight of working conditions for women and children in sweatshops that he gave up his teaching career and became an investigative reporter for the National Child Labor Committee.  He often disguised his appearance to gain entry into many factories to photograph children (who took photographs that managers did not want the public to see) operating dangerous machines under little or no supervision.  What he observed and photographed were children under the age of fourteen suffering from tuberculosis, bronchitis, mutilation, and death. Hine’s most haunting photos were in the dark tunnels and grimy breaker rooms of coal mines. He observed two boys under the age of twelve with their hands mutilated. On another investigation, he found two boys were smothered to death while working in a coal chute.  In the glass blowing industry, he found that children had eye trouble, lung ailments and heat exhaustion from the open furnaces that reached temperatures as high as 130 degrees.

The power of photography was realized when newspapers and other media began to use photographs of child labor by Lewis Hine from 1908-1912 who expressed his outrage at what he saw as the exploitation of children.

One advantage of Hine’s photographs was the ability to offer evidence and authentication. The earlier illustrations and engravings of the nineteenth century were so crudely drawn that it was hard to credit them with much accuracy and trustworthiness. The majority of America believed that child labor wasn’t that big an issue, but the few that saw the problem like Hine were horrified. The use of photographs had a definite impact in altering public perceptions of women and child labor in the twentieth century.  By publishing volumes of photos showing how children were being abused and deprived of an education, he created such a public outcry that politicians took notice. Mary Lynn Stevens commented about Hine’s famous Breaker Boys Photo and stated that the children staring out in magazines presented us with terrible contradictions to what we understood represented the definition of childhood.  These children looked neither happy nor healthy.  For others, these photographs represented a terrible state of affairs that could no longer be ignored in a civilized country like America.

When a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York City in 1911, 150 women and children needlessly died as a result of the company’s lack of concern for their safety.  When the fire swept through many of the upper floors of the building, workers were not able to escape or had to jump to their death because the safety exits were locked.  These exits were secured because the company owners wanted to prevent the loss of goods by its workers.   However, it was photographers like Hine who published photos of tragedies like these that aroused the public to take action and unite unions like the Ladies Waist and Dressmakers Union Local 25 and the United Hebrew Trades of New York against corporate America.  

As a result of the work of photographers like Hine, more and more Americans saw that the only effective organizations to represent their interests, and safety and challenge big business over these issues were the unions and federations of unions.  When hazardous working conditions were brought to the attention of the government, the interests of big business were represented at the expense of women and children.  When unions asked their membership to strike over such issues as unsafe working conditions, poor wages, longer working days, etc. the federal government supported  big business by sending in troops to break their strikes.  Corporations were notorious in obtaining injunctions from the courts against unions and prevented them from organizing and forcing their workers back to work. 

Although there were over 1500 laws limiting or prohibiting women and child labor throughout the states, they often did not apply to immigrants who worked long hours for low wages.    Thus immigrants were the ones who ended up being exploited and living in slums with their families.    Because many of Hine’s photographs were of immigrant women and children, his photographs were also significant in forcing the public to look at these immigrants as individuals rather than as second class citizens.  

From an historical perspective in America and worldwide, Hine’s photographs along with union support had a direct impact on laws governing the employment of women and children. Because Hine worked for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC) which was organized by citizens and politicians, his photos were introduced in Congress to enact the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 which prohibited child labor under the age of 16. However, no age limit was set for non-hazardous agricultural employment. On the international level, the NCLC pushed the International Labor Organization to adopt in 1919 two agreements- to fix the minimum age for admitting children into industrial employment and to prohibit night work for young children in various industries. With the help of the NCLC and the Children’s Bureau, Hine’s photographs and supporters were able to get attendance in schools to improve both nationally and abroad by stressing that working excessive hours caused children to be truant, perform poorly academically and were prepared poorly for survival in a changing economy. Hine’s efforts also helped in the creation of the Child Welfare League in 1921, the National Association of the Education of Young Children in 1926, a separate justice system for juveniles, child protection laws and even the spread of playgrounds in parks and schools.

Even in the twenty first century, photographs are still needed today as documents of truth and unions are needed to advocate for the safety and welfare of women and children.  My grandmother left her company after facing considerable ridicule by her superiors for trying to unionize her co-workers.  When members of her nursing department came to her to express their concern that their excessive workloads were jeopardizing the health and safety of their patients, they sought re-dress by seeking the help of unions to curb the abuses of management.   When my father tried to express his concern that health and safety of children under his care were being jeopardized, he faced considerable ridicule by his superiors for speaking out in the media and telling the truth.