Mick Hartley

Further to my post of a couple of weeks back featuring a 1910 portrait by Lewis Hine – the photographer who documented American child labour in the early years of the 20th century – here’s the Lewis Hine Project, run by freelance historian Joe Manning.

In the fall of 2005, I was hired by author Elizabeth Winthrop to find the descendants of Addie Card, a 12-year-old cotton mill worker in Pownal, Vermont, who had been photographed in 1910 by Lewis Hine, for the National Child Labor Committee. Hine, who died in 1940, was one of the great photojournalists of the 20th century.

Winthrop had recently completed Counting On Grace, a novel inspired by Addie’s photo. She wanted to find out the real story of Addie, who had been identified by Hine as Addie Laird. Previous attempts by others had come up empty. Amazingly, Winthrop was able to quickly determine that Addie’s last name was actually Card. With that startling information, she learned that she had married at 17. But after the 1920 census, Winthrop could find no record of Addie or her husband, or if they had any children. That’s when she turned to me for help.

Within two weeks, I had located and contacted Addie’s granddaughter. In two more weeks, I was standing before Addie’s grave. Just after Christmas, Elizabeth and I met and interviewed Addie’s great-granddaughter, descended from the adopted daughter of Addie’s second marriage.

As the summer of 2006 approached, I learned that more than 5,000 of Hine’s child labor photos are viewable on the Library of Congress website. Some of those photos also show parents working at home, some with their children. I waded through some of them one morning. I stared at the children, and they stared back. I said to myself, “I can do for these children (and adults) what I did for Addie.” So far, I have located and contacted descendants of dozens of child and adult laborers.

Here’s the full Addie Card story. There are plenty more.

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