Discussion for article #224764
Gee, I wonder why we ever needed workplace regulations? These look like budding job creators to me.
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The job creators were the ones with the sticks, kicking and prodding the boys into a properly productive state of mind. Adam Smith’s “invisible hand of the market” didn’t seem to remedy the situation, did it?
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At least Stalin called it “primitive accumulation” rather than “free enterprise”.
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BTW - let’s remember that this kind of shit still goes on in many other places in the world today.
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My grandfather (b. 1901) left school in third grade to work in an anthracite breaker. Not that distant a past for many of us.
It’s worth a summer vacation detour to the northeastern PA Coal Region to see the wonders “clean coal” has worked on the land and the people. And I wish President Obama would spend a day visiting the region before midterms.
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My late uncle, born in 1900, was a breaker boy at age 14 in NE PA coal country.
He lied about his age, joined the cavalry at 15, was in the expedition against Pancho Villa, served in France as a dough boy in WW1.
Later he was in the Allied Expedition “to restore the czar”.
He was a Merchant Marine in WW2, survived at least one sinking, evacuated civilians during the Korean War, died peacefully at age 85.
A breaker boy indeed, he was only semi-literate, but witness to much history.
I compare his life, my late dad’s life, my late father-in-law’s life to mine and I feel very small. The 3 were of the same generation, saw war and hard physical labor, lived the transition from horse to car.
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Col
Photos like these and others of child labor stick in one’s gizzard and did much to prompt the passage of child labor laws.
We have had members of Congress propose the repeal of such laws.
Don’t know who can look at such sights and still believe in some benign God.
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Also don’t know how anyone with a moral compass
could have elected the congressmen who want to
get rid of child labor laws.
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Sadly, this still exists in the U.S. in the tobacco fields using child labor. And its legal.
The headline below is a bit misleading however, as child labor on tobacco farms never really went away.
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These look like they must have come from Pat Buchanan’s family album, i.e. the family that enslaved the kids and ran the coal mines. I am sure Pat would be all on board with abolishing child labor laws. How else get the coal mined, the toilets scrubbed, and the poor kept in their place.
My maternal grandpa worked the mines in Scranton as a kid in the late 1800’s. 13 days on, 1 day off, 12 hours a day for 5 dollars a week. I wish he was alive to explain to today’s “leaders” how important the unions were and how they changed his life when the organized the coal miners.
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Shorpy, a great photo blog, has all these and more. Worth bookmarking but beware, you’ll get lost for hours once you start surfing.
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I seen these photos or some similar before, I thought about them when I read about that idiot Governor from Maine wanting to abolish child labor laws. I hope these pictures are sent to him, especially the one of the guy with the stick.
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I used to use the photo of the boys taken from the back ("View of the Ewan Breaker . . . ") when I taught high school history. I’d put it up on the screen and wait. Invariably, someone would say, “He’s got a stick.” It was what they always noticed, as if they wanted me to say that it was just for show. They were clearly uneasy with the idea that at some point people could beat kids with sticks, that it was permitted. Yet, people never seem to understand where we were so that they are able to “get” labor laws. The tragedy at Avondale is good for that, too. A little more history in the schools, who knows what good could come of it. Except, of course, STEM . . . . . .
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kid
I was born in Scranton, and many of my maternal family were born and worked in the area in coal and coal-related industries. Like you, I’ve heard all the stories. Left there when I was 12.
There are still numbers of men with black lung in PA.
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I went to the 5th grade in PA. At the time it was legal for teachers to beat kids. Frankly, it rarely happened, but I witnessed two beatings with a wooden pointer of a kid I later learned was mentally disabled.
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Thank goodness those truckers have introduced a more efficient method for generating coal dust that doesn’t risk the welfare of these young Republicans.
Zora
Five minutes ago I was reading about Scalia’s son, a lawyer and lobbyist who is out to destroy – among other things – OSHA.
Yes, men of the law who don’t even have a pretense of a sense of justice or compassion. They’re as common as cockroaches and equally respectable.
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My grandfather work in the mines near Scranton (we lived very close to them).
I look at these photos and imagine him thinking: “It’s bad, but much better than staying in the Ukraine under Stalin”