America's little-seen child labor problem

At the turn of the 20th century, photographer Lewis Wickes Hine – who considered himself an “investigator with a camera” – started documenting the working conditions of America’s children, sometimes disguising himself as a Bible salesman to gain entry into the country’s factories, coal mines and farms.

His images of soot-covered, cotton-picking, newspaper-lugging boys and girls are a big reason Congress went on to pass a series of child labor laws.

Fast-forward to today, when the U.S. Department of Labor finds itself under fire for failing to enforce child labor laws, with reports emerging of an unaccounted underclass of child workers. Unlike the children in Hine’s photographs, they tend to be Central American immigrants. But they, too, are performing hazardous jobs in America’s factories and fields.

And yet, as explained by photohistorian Beth Saunders of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, there is little visual evidence of their plight.

“Photographs of child labor in foreign countries are far more common than those made in the U.S.,” Saunders writes. “Perhaps it’s too hard for Americans to look at this domestic issue square in the eyes.”

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