Photograph taken by Lewis W. Hines in Pittston, PA www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/ This photograph shows four boys who worked in a coal mine. Coal mining was one of the first fields of child labor investigated by the National Child Labor Committee in their attempts to bring the issue of child labor to the attention of the general American population. They choose the coal mines because there had recently been a very public strike held by the workers that was still on the minds of most United States citizens at the time. “Further, the anthracite region was geographically close to the major urban centers…Child labor in the anthracite mines demonstrated the national character of the problem, but did so in a way that brought the story close to home.” They were able to uncover a horrible miscarriage of justice right in the backyard of America. This news, along with the graphic pictures, sent shock waves throughout America and sent political protestors into action. This exposure of civil crimes led to the investigation of many other industry areas such as the unregulated meat packing industry revealed the published book “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair. Stopping child labor was only the beginning of an up hill battle that activists had to fight to ensure the release and ban of all child labor in all aspects of industry in the United States. Hindman, Hugh D. Child Labor: An American History. New York: M.E. Sharpe Inc., 2002.
