How To Think Like A Historian

How To Think Like A HistorianA Framework for TeachersBruce A. Vansledright

REVOLUTION, REACTION AND REFORM IN HISTORY2011-2012 National History Day Theme

Thinking like a Historian: How to research and analyze a History Day theme.

Questions Historical Detectives Ask to Solve the Mysteries of the Past1. Formulate a Historically Significant QuestionTHINKWhat is important about the event, person, idea, movement, etc. to the historical context or period?

EXAMPLEWhat were working conditions like for children in the United States in the late 1800s and early 1900s?2. Find Evidence About the Historical QuestionTHINK

What evidence best answers the historical question?ExamplesPrimary Historical Photographs, Political Cartoons and DocumentsLewis Hine At Work

Child Labor in America

The Use & Abuse of Child Labor

Exploitation of Children in America

The Fate of Children in America

Children Working for Adults

Working in the Mills

The Mill: Some boys and girls were so small they had to climb up on to the spinning frame to mend broken threads and to put back the empty bobbins. Bibb Mill No. 1. Macon, Georgia.Working in the Coal Mines

View of the Ewen Breaker of the Pennsylvania Coal Co. The dust was so dense at times as to obscure the view. This dust penetrated the utmost recesses of the boys' lungs. A kind of slave-driver sometimes stands over the boys, prodding or kicking them into obedience. South Pittston, Pennsylvania.Working in the Bowling Alley

Bowling Alley boys. Many of them work setting pins until past midnight. New Haven, Connecticut.Working on the Streets

Francis Lance, 5 years old, 41 inches high. He jumps on and off moving trolley cars at the risk of his life. St. Louis, Missouri. Working in the Cigar Factory

Young cigar makers in Engelhardt & Co. Three boys looked under 14. Labor leaders told me in busy times many small boys and girls were employed. Youngsters all smoke. Tampa, Florida.Working in the Oyster Cannery

Oyster shuckers working in a canning factory. All but the very smallest babies work. Began work at 3:30 a.m. and expected to work until 5 p.m. The little girl in the center was working. Her mother said she is "a real help to me. Dunbar, Louisiana.Working in the Cotton Fields

Six-year-old Warren Frakes. Mother said he picked 41 pounds yesterday "An I don't make him pick; he picked some last year." Has about 20 pounds in his bag. Comanche County, Oklahoma.Harvesting Tobacco

Three boys, one of 13 yrs., two of 14 yrs., picking shade-grown tobacco on Hackett Farm. The "first picking" necessitates a sitting posture. Buckland, Connecticut.Picking Berries

Norris Luvitt. Been picking 3 years in berry fields near Baltimore.Working in the Glass Factory

Rob Kidd, one of the young workers in a glass factory. Alexandria, Virginia.Sewing in the Factory

Working At Home - Piecework

A Jewish family and neighbors working until late at night sewing garters. The youngest work until 9 p.m. The others until 11 p.m. or later. On the left is Mary, age 7, and 10-year-old Sam, and next to the mother is a 12-year-old boy. On the right are Sarah, age 7, next is her 11 year old sister, 13-year-old brother. Father is out of work and also helps make garters. New York City.Lewis Hines Report on Visiting Mississippi Cotton Mills

Autobiography of Harriet RobinsonA Lowell Mill Girl3. Evaluate Sources of EvidenceTHINK

Where does the evidence originate?

How can its origins be verified?

What is the relative importance of each source to the historical question?Wikipedia Child Labor LawsSecondary SourceLibrary of CongressPrimary SourcesThe Words of Lewis HineThere is work that profits children, and there is work that brings profit only to employers. The object of employing children is not to train them, but to get high profits from their work.

Lewis Hine, 1908The Words of Child Workersin North & South CarolinaOh, it was awful hot. Youd come out of there, your clothes was plumb wetall that stuff arunnin, machinery makin heat. It was bad. Terrible hot out here. North Carolina

Its pitiful for the child working at twelve years old. Wake up every morning at five oclock, go to work at 6:20. Get up and eat a good breakfast and get waked up, then its time to go to work. And you worked eleven hours a day. South Carolina4. Assess the Reliability of the Sources of Evidence

THINKHow close in time, place, etc. are the sources to the event, person, movement, etc.?

What are motivations/biases of the sources?

How credible are the sources?

To what extent do the sources agree with one another?Lewis Hine Investigative TechniquesLewis Hine, a New York City schoolteacher and photographer, believed that a picture could tell a powerful story. He felt so strongly about the abuse of children as workers that he quit his teaching job and became an investigative photographer for the National Child Labor Committee

Hine traveled around the country photographing the working conditions of children in all types of industries such as coal mines, meatpacking houses, textile mills and canneries. He took pictures of children working in the streets as shoe shiners, newsboys and hawkers.

Hine ContinuedIn many instances, he tricked his way into factories to take the pictures that factory managers did not want the public to see.

He was careful to document every photograph with precise facts and figures. To obtain captions for his pictures, he interviewed the children on some pretext and then scribbled his notes with his hand inside his pocket. Because he used subterfuge to take his photographs, he believed that he had to be double-sure that my photo data was 100% pure no retouching or fakery of any kind.

Hine defined a good photograph as a reproduction of impressions made upon the photographer which he desires to repeat to others. Because he realized his photographs were subjective, he described his work as photo-interpretation.

Photographs of Lewis Hine: Documentation of Child Labor

Verifying Credibility of Historical SourcesEXAMPLE: Examine the consistency of multiple primary sources in information presented about child labor:

The History Place: Child Labor in America 1908-1912: Photographs of Lewis W. Hinehttp://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/American Treasures of the Library of Congresshttp://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trm032.htmlNational Child Labor Committee Collection: Photographs by Lewis Hinehttp://www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/207-b.html

5. Construct an Argument that Answers the Historical QuestionTHINKWhat evidence best answers the historical question?

What thesis statement best fits the evidence?

How can the evidence be arranged to best support the thesis statement?THESIS STATEMENTREVOLUTION, REACTION AND REFORM IN HISTORYLewis Hines revolutionary use of photo-journalism to investigate child labor in the United States from 1908 to 1912 led to a strong public reaction and support for significant state and federal reforms in the working conditions for American children. Keating-Owens Child Labor Act of 1916

Arrangement of EvidenceHistory Day ProjectWorking conditions of Child LaborIntroduction to Lewis Hine3.Investigative techniques of Lewis Hine 4.Child labor pictures and reports5.Child labor reforms and laws

10/20/10 5:34 AMModern History Sourcebook: Harriet Robinson: Lowell Mill Girls

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Modern History Sourcebook:

Harriet Robinson:

Lowell Mill Girls

In her autobiography, Harriet Hanson Robinson, the wife of a newspaper editor, provided an account of her

earlier life as female factory worker (from the age of ten in 1834 to 1848) in the textile Mills of Lowell,

Massachusetts. Her account explains some of the family dynamics involved, and lets us see the women as active

participants in their own lives - for instance in their strike of 1836.

In what follows, I shall confine myself to a description of factory life in Lowell, Massachusetts, from 1832 to1848, since, with that phase of Early Factory Labor in New England, I am the most familiar-because I was apart of it.

In 1832, Lowell was little more than a factory village. Five "corporations" were started, and the cotton millsbelonging to them were building. Help was in great demand and stories were told all over the country of thenew factory place, and the high wages that were offered to all classes of workpeople; stories that reached theears of mechanics' and farmers' sons and glave new life to lonely and dependent women in distant towns andfarmhouses .... Troops of young girls came from different parts of New England, and from Canada, and menwere employed to collect them at so much a head, and deliver them at the factories.

. . .

At the time the Lowell cotton mills were started the caste of the factory girl was the lowest among theemployments of women. In England and in France, particularly, great injustice had been done to her realcharacter. She was represented as subjected to influences that must destroy her purity and selfrespect. In theeyes of her overseer she was but a brute, a slave, to be beaten, pinched and pushed about. It was to overcomethis prejudice that such high wages had been offered to women that they might be induced to become millgirls,in spite of the opprobrium that still clung to this degrading occupation....

The early millgirls were of different ages. Some were not over ten years old; a few were in middle life, but themajority were between the ages of sixteen and twentyfive. The very young girls were called "doffers." They"doffed," or took off, the full bobbins from the spinningframes, and replaced them with empty ones. Thesemites worked about fifteen minutes every hour and the rest of the time was their own. When the overseer waskind they were allowed to read, knit, or go outside the millyard to play. They were paid two dollars a week. Theworking hours of all the girls extended from five o'clock in the morning until seven in the evening, with onehalfhour each, for breakfast and dinner. Even the doffers were forced to be on duty nearly fourteen hours a day.This was the greatest hardship in the lives of these children. Several years later a tenhour law was passed, butnot until long after some of these little doffers were old enough to appear before the legislative committee onthe subject, and plead, by their presence, for a reduction of the hours of labor.

Those of the millgirls who had homes generally worked from eight to ten months in the year; the rest of thetime was spent with parents or friends. A few taught school during the summer months. Their life in the factorywas made pleasant to them. In those days there was no need of advocating the doctrine of the proper relationbetween employer and employed. Help was too valuable to be illtreated....

Part of a series on

Organized labour

The labour movement

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Social Movement Unionism Socialism

Syndicalism Anarcho-syndicalism

Labour timeline

Labour rights

Child labor Eight-hour day

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Academic disciplines

Labor in economics

Labor history

Industrial relations Labor law

"Addie Card, 12 years. Spinnerin North Pormal [i.e., Pownal]

Cotton Mill. Vt." by Lewis Hine

In 1852, Massachusetts required children to attend school. In 1853,

Charles Loring Brace founded the Children's Aid Society, which worked

hard to take in children living on the street. The following year, the

children were placed on a train headed for the West, where they were

adopted, and often given work. By the late 19th century, the orphan train

had stopped running altogether, but its principles lived on.

In 1914 the Arkansas state Federation of Labor placed a child welfare

initiative on the ballot prohibiting child labor, which the voters

passed.[2]

The National Child Labor Committee, an organization dedicated to the

abolition of all child labor, was formed in 1904. It managed to pass one

law, which was struck down by the Supreme Court two years later for

violating a child's right to contract his work. In 1924, Congress

attempted to pass a constitutional amendment that would authorize a

national child labor law. This measure was blocked, and the bill was

eventually dropped. It took the Great Depression to end child labor

nationwide; adults had become so desperate for jobs that they would

work for the same wage as children. In 1938, President Franklin D.

Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act, which, among other

things, placed limits on many forms of child labor.

Contents

1 Current Child Labor in USA

2 See also

3 References

4 External links

Current Child Labor in USA

Current labor laws allow children to work with restrictions and without

parents' consent at age 13.

See also

Timeline of children's rights in the United States

United States labor law

References

^ "Chapter: Child Labor (Nonagricultural Work)"

(http://www.dol.gov/compliance/guide/childlbr.htm) , Compliance

1.

10/20/10 5:09 AMChild Labor (Memory): American Treasures of the Library of Congress

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Child Labor

Lewis Hine (1874-1940)Child Labor in the

Cotton Mills of Mississippi,April-May 1911

Typescript reportManuscript Division

Edward F. BrownChild Labor in the Gulf Coast

National Child Labor CommitteePage 2

Carbon typescript copy, 1913Manuscript Division

Gift of the National Child Labor Committee, 1954 (55.4a,b)

The National Child Labor Committeecampaigned for tougher state and federal lawsagainst the abuses of industrial child labor, andLewis Hine was its greatest publicist. Ateacher who left his profession to work full-time as investigator for the committee, Hineprepared a number of the Committee's reportsand took some of the most powerful images inthe history of documentary photography. TheLibrary holds the papers of the Committee,including the reports, field notes,correspondence, and over 5,000 of Hine'sphotographs and negatives. This album depictschildren at work in canneries and isaccompanied by a follow-up report for a groupof canneries previously investigated by Hine.

Interior of Magnolia (Miss.)Cotton Mills and Spinning Room

Image 2

Lewis Hine (1874-1940)Group of Workers in Clayton, N.C. Cotton Mills,

October 1912Image 2

Photographic albumPrints & Photographs Division

Gift of the National Child Labor Committee, 1954(55B.13, 55B.14)

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