Turn-of-the-Century Child
at School and Work

School

• Search the subject "Schools" and "Education" in the American Memory collections
  
  
  
• "Reading and Writing" in Centenarians, ed. Bernard Edelman.  New York: Farrar, 1999.
  
  
  
• Rae, Noel ed.  Witnessing America; The Library of Congress Book of Firsthand Accounts of Life in America 1600-1900, New York: Penguin, 1996.
  Read excerpts from "Upbringing."
  
  
  
• Du Bois, W. E. B.  "Advice to a Black School Girl" (1905) in The American Reader; Words That Moved a Nation ed. by Diane Ravitch.  New York: Harper Perennial, 1990.
  
  
• Hawes, Joseph M. Children Between the Wars; American Childhood, 1920-1940.  Twayne/Prentice Hall International, 1997.
  Chapters on the Federal Children's Bureau, educational developments, clinics and other social service agencies.
  
  
  
• Items used in school (pencils, quill pen and ink, slates and chalk).
  
  
  
• Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village. "McGuffey 's New Second Eclectic Reader for Young Learners" Pic of the Month (September, 1996)
  [http://www.hfmgv.org/histories/pic/96.sept.html]

Child Labor

General Resources

• Bartoletti, Susan Campbell.  Kids on Strike!  New York: Houghton, 1999.
  Children's involvement in labor activities in industries during the 19th and early 20th century with excellent photographs.
  
  
• Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Smithsonian National Museum of American History of sweatshops
  [http://www.si.edu/nmah/ve/sweatshops/history/history.htm]
  
  
• Cahn, Rhoda.  No Time for School, No Time for Play; The Story of Child Labor in America.  New York: Messner, 1972.
  
  
• "Children At Work 1908-1912: The Photography of Lewis Hine."
  [http://www.ibiscom.com/hnintro.htm]
  
  
• Child Labor in America 1908-1912 The Photographs of Lewis W. Hine. History Place
  [http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/index.html]
  
  
• Friedman, Russell. Kids at Work; Lewis Hine and the Crusade Against Child Labor.   New York: Clarion, 1994.
  
  
  
• Hobbs, Sandy.  Child Labor; A World History Companion.  Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 1999.
  
  
  
• Holland, Ruth. Mill Child.  New York: Crowell-Collier-Macmillan, 1970.
  
  
• Picture the American Past Series describes children's life during the 19th and early 20th century---in factory and agricultural work, and the benefits they gained from the settlement house movement.  Titles in the series include:
  Arnold, Caroline.  Children of the Settlement Houses.  Minneapolis, MN: Carolrhoda, 1998.
  Saller, Carol.  Working Children.  Minneapolis, MN: Carolrhoda, 1998.

Primary Resources

• "Camella Teoli Testifies about the 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike.  Hearings on the Strike at Lawrence, Massachusetts, House Document No. 671, 62nd Cong., 2nd sess. Reprinted in Joyce L.Kornbluh, ed. Rebel Voices: An I.W.W. Anthology.   (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1964), 181-184. History Matters. Many Pasts.
  [http://historymatters.gmu.edu/text/2046a-teoli.html]
  
  
  
• Campbell, Helen.  "Darkness and Daylight" and "Lights and Shadows of New York Life" reprinted in Witnessing America; The Library of Congress Book of Firsthand Accounts of Life in America 1600-1900 ed. Noel Rae.  New York: Penguin, 1996.
  
  
  
• "Child Labor: American Treasures of the Library of Congress"
  [http://lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trm032.html]
  
  
  
• Child Labor and Labor Reform in American History
  [http://www.history.ohio-state.edu/projects/childlabor/]
  Contains two illustrated, childlike stories  told by the National Child Labor Committee, designed to appeal to readers to end child labor.
  
  
  
• Gambol, Jay.  "The History Behind Newsies."
  [http://www.geocities.com/~newsies-movie/history.html] 
  Reprints of New York Times articles about the newsboy's strike of 1899.
  
  
  
• National Child Labor Committee [http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/print/207_hine.html]
  This Committee campaigned for tougher state and federal laws against the abuses of industrial child labor.  Lewis Hine (1874-1940) left his job as a teacher to work full time as an investigator for the committee. Selected documentary photographs are digitized.
  [http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/207-b.html]
  
  
  
• Spargo, John. "God Must Work in Some Other Mine" from The Bitter Cry of Children reprinted in Ordinary Americans; U.S. History Throught the Eyes of Everyday People, ed. by Linda R. Monk.   Alexandria, VA: Close-Up Publishing, 1994.

Labor

General Resources

• Coal Mining in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era
  [http://www.cohums.ohio-state.edu/history/projects/Lessons_US/Gilded_Age/Coal_Mining/default.htm]
  
  
  
• Colman, Penny.  Strike! The Bitter Struggle of American Workers from Colonial Times to the Present.  Brookfield, CT: Millbrook, 1996.
  
  
  
• A Curriculum of United States Labor History for Teachers.  Illinois Labor History Society. 
  [http://www.kentlaw.edu/ilhs/curricul.htm]
  Includes timeline.
  
  
  
• An Eclectic List of Events in U.S. Labor History
  [http://www.nitehawk.com/alleycat/labor.html]
  
  
  
• Gourley, Catherine.  Good Girl Work: Factories, Sweatshops and How Women Changed their Role in the American Workforce.  Brookfield, CT: Millbrook, 1999.
  
  
  
• Josephson, Judith J. Mother Jones; Fierce Fighter for Workers’ Rights.   Minneapolis, MN: Lerner, 1997.
  
  
  
• Kraft, Betsy Harvey.  Mother Jones; One Woman’s Fight for Labor.   New York: Clarion, 1995.
  
  
  
• Matewan directed by John Sayles, tells the story of coal miners. organized by the Wobblies, struggling to form a union in 1920s in West Virginia.
  
  
  
• Seeger, Pete and Bob Reiser.  Carry it On!  A History in Song and Picture of America's Working Men and Women.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985.
  
  
  
• The Samuel Gompers Papers; A Documentary History of the American Working Class
  [http://www.inform.umd.edu/Hist/Gompers/web1.html]
  Papers, timeline and biography of the president of the American Federation of Labor
  
  
  
• A Short History of American Labor
  [http://www.unionweb.org/history.htm]
  
  
  
• Turner, Keith, ed.  New York: The Oxford Book of Work.  Oxford University Press, 1999.
  
  
  
• Turn-of-the-Century Child: Timeline 1900-1929
  [http://nuevaschool.org/~debbie/library/cur/20c/turn/sup/tline.html]
  Look for specific events related to labor.
  
  
• Union Songs
  [http://www.crixa.com/muse/unionsong/songs.html]
  Searchable collection of songs including Woody Guthrie's "The 1913 Massacre," Ralph Chaplin's "Solidarity Forever," and Harry McClintock's "Hallelujah! I'm a Bum."  Includes related articles, books and discography.
  
  
  
• Wormser, Richard.  Hoboes; Wandering in America, 1870-1940.  New York: Walker, 1994.

Primary Sources

• "Dissatisfied With the Lives They Live: Farm Women Describe Their Work in a 1913 U.S. Department of Agriculture Report" Extracts from United States Department of Agriculture, Report No. 103: Social and Labor Needs of Farm Women. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1915), 5-10, 42-55. History Matter. Many Pasts.
  [http://historymatters.gmu.edu/text/1986a-letters.html]
  
  
  
• "Labor  Days" Centenarians.  ed. Bernard Edelman.  New York: Farrar, 1999.
  Reminiscences from men and women about work.
  
  
  
• "Experiences of a 'Hired Girl.'  The Outlook, vol. 100, April 6, 1912, pp. 778-780. History Matter.   Many Pasts.
  [http://historymatters.gmu.edu/text/522e-Outlook.html]
  An domestic worker speaks out.
  
  
  
• Hargett, Edna Y.  "Like One Big Family."   Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University Of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  History Matters: Many Pasts.
  [http://historymatters.gmu.edu/text/642a-hargett.html]
  Former textile worker describes the closeness of the Southern mill village in the 1920s.
  
  
  
• Labor History Articles. Illinois Labor History Society
  [http://www.kentlaw.edu/ilhs/articles.htm]
  
  
  
• "Inside an American Factory: Films of the Westinghouse Works, 1904.
  [http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/papr/west/westhome.html]
  Contains actuality films showing various views of Westinghouse companies intended to showcase the company's model operations. Exterior and interor shots of the factories are shown along with scenes of male and female workers performing their duties at the plants.
  
  Special presentation: The Westinghouse World; The Companies, the People, and the Places [http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/papr/west/westpres.html].
  
  
  
• Labor-Management Conflict in American History
  [http://www.history.ohio-state.edu/projects/laborconflict/]
  Includes primary source accounts of Haymarket Square, Pennsylvania coal mining conflicts, Molly Maguire movement, Chicago strike.
  
  
  
• Markham, Edwin "The Man with the Hoe" by Edwin Markham in The American Reader; Words That Moved a Nation ed. Diane Ravitch.  New York: Harper Perennial, 1990.
  
  
  
• Mumford, Lewis. The City In History.
  Read chapter 15 "Working Class Life in the Cities" of this classic work.
  
  
  
• O'Hare, Katie Richards.  "Kate Richards O'Hare's Life as a Socialist Party Organizer." from  Socialist Woman, II (October 1908): 4-5. Reprinted in Phillip S.Foner and Sally M. Miller, eds., Kate Richards O.Hare: Selected Writings and Speeches (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
  Press, 1982), 35-41.  History Matters. Many Pasts.
  [http://historymatters.gmu.edu/text/1681a-ohare.html]
  
  
  
• Schulman, Sylvia.  "I Was Not Wanted Any Longer." in United States Commission on Industrial Relations 1914, Final Report and Testimony, III (Washington, 1916), 2285-2292. History Matters.  Many Pasts.
  [http://historymatters.gmu.edu/text/2022d-schulman.html]
  A retail worker joins the union in 1914 and gets fired.

© Debbie Abilock August 22, 1999-2004