Why were hundreds of thousands of children working in American coal mines and textile mills at the turn of the century?
Between 1866 and 1920, the rise of industrial America was fueled by jobs too dangerous—and too small—for machines. In the pitch-black coal breakers of Pennsylvania, young boys spent 10 hours a day picking slate from coal until their fingers bled. Known as “breaker boys,” their work was legal, public, and documented in plain sight.
In this dark history documentary, we look into the reality of child labor during the Gilded Age, the brutal conditions of extinct historical occupations, and the secret photo investigation by Lewis Hine that finally forced the nation to end it.
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 The Job No Machine Could Do
01:32 Inside the Breaker
05:36 What a Boy’s Day Was Worth
06:46 The Machine That Did It Better
08:08 The Photographer Hired to End It
09:07 How It Actually Ended
SOURCES & ARCHIVES:
Photos and records courtesy of the Library of Congress, National Child Labor Committee, and Lewis Hine archives (Public Domain).
Dead Work: Exploring the extinct jobs, forgotten disasters, and dark history lost to time.
#history #americanhistory #industrialrevolution #darkhistory #documentary #gildedage
source
