North Carolina's textile industry grew unabated from the 1880's through the first years of the Twentieth Century. Throughout this period of industrial development, children constituted a substantial portion of the textile workforce. In North Carolina mills, children under 16 represented roughly 25% of all workers. It was considered normal for children to begin their industrial career between 10 and 13 years of age, but children as young as 5 could be found working is some mills.
By 1908, that was about to change. The industry was beginning to feel the effects of the first recession since its inception. The federal government had just launched the first in a series of massive investigations of child labor practices in America. This first interrogation was focused entirely on child labor in southern cotton textiles. Finally, the National Child Labor Committee dispatched social photographer Lewis Hine to conduct its own investigation of child labor in Carolina mills.
Hine's photographs provided visual proof of practices that many mill owners had heretofore attempted to deny. This visual proof was presented in the form of powerful imagery that helped to galvanize public sentiment against child labor. While final abolition was not achieved until the 1930's, 1908 marked the beginning of the end of child labor in North Carolina. This website presents a sampling of Hine's photographs depicting child labor conditions as they existed at the turning point in the history of North Carolina's textile industry.