The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing Volume 47 | Issue 1 Article 10 2018 Focusing on “The Human Document”: Lewis Hine and the Role of Photography in Child Labor Reform in Early Twentieth-Century America Miranda Jessop Brigham Young University, mirandajessop14@gmail.com Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/thetean Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Jessop, Miranda (2018) "Focusing on “The Human Document”: Lewis Hine and the Role of Photography in Child Labor Reform in Early Twentieth-Century America," The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing: Vol. 47 : Iss. 1 , Article 10. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/thetean/vol47/iss1/10 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact scholarsarchive@byu.edu, ellen_amatangelo@byu.edu. Jessop: Child labor photography Adolescent Girl, a Spinner, in a Carolina Cotton Mill, 1908. Lewis W. Hine. Courtesy Princeton University Art Museum. Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 2018 1 The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing, Vol. 47 [2018], Iss. 1, Art. 10 Paper Focusing on “The Human Document” Lewis Hine and the Role of Photography in Child Labor Reform in Early Twentieth-Century America Miranda Jessop L ewis Wickes Hine, now known as the father of social documentary photography, changed the course of the child labor reform movement of the early twentieth century. The incorporation of his potent photographs of pitiful child laborers into the literature of the private, non-profit National Child Labor Committee (NCLC) and the reactions they elicited from the public revolutionized social reform. Simply put, his photographs, personal and powerful, changed public opinion as they were publicized in investigation reports, exhibition panels, posters, and newspapers. As Hine’s work reached increasingly larger numbers of Americans, it swayed public opinion in favor of child labor reform, which led to the passage of the Keating-Owen Child Labor Act of 1916, a federal law that restricted child labor. Child labor has its roots in the Industrial Revolution, which increased the demand for cheap labor. Agricultural production accelerated and the manufacturing of goods moved from the home into newly-built factories. Large populations followed employment opportunities to urban areas where men, women, and children found work in new centers of industry. Employers quickly recognized the economic advantages of hiring children, whose wages were less than those of their adult counterparts. America’s first factory, built by Samuel Slater in Pawtucket, Rhode Island in 1790, was filled with child laborers.1 Not only 1. Walter I. Trattner, Crusade for the Children: A History of the National Child Labor Committee and Child Labor Reform in America (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1970), 26. 135 https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/thetean/vol47/iss1/10 2 Jessop: Child labor photography 136 The Thetean was child labor significantly cheaper, but “it was also believed [that children] were more tractable, reliable, and industrious . . . and as labor unions developed, less likely to strike.”2 Factory managers saw children as ideal employees. Although several states passed laws regulating or restricting child labor during the mid-nineteenth century, these laws were largely unenforced by government officials or sidestepped by employers. Following the conclusion of the Civil War, industrial growth and expansion exploded during what came to be known as the second Industrial Revolution. All of America’s major industries became increasingly mechanized, driving up the demand for cheap, unskilled labor. Consequently, the number of child laborers grew quickly. The 1870 census was the first to count the number of children that were “engaged in gainful occupations.”3 By 1880, a little over a million children fell into this census category. Within the next two decades, that number had nearly doubled. The 1900 census records that approximately 1.75 million American children were employed;4 however, this number only represents working children between the ages of ten and fourteen. Thousands of younger children were also employed, increasing the total estimate to approximately 2 million.5 Progressive social groups began to oppose child labor during the final years of the nineteenth century. However, their attention was often divided between causes, and their strategies varied. Some organizations, such as the American Academy of Political and Social Science, published reports and articles decrying the issue. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) took up the cause of child labor in the late 1890s increasing public awareness of the need for child labor legislation in Alabama through the publication of leaflets and newspaper articles. Their efforts saw some success there in 1903, due in large part to the writings of Edgar Murphy, an influential member of the Alabama Child Labor Committee.6 The membership of the New York Child Labor Committee, which had been founded the November prior, included Hunter and Florence Kelley and Felix Adler. Like the AFL, they saw some success in the passage of five state 2. Trattner, Crusade for the Children, 27. 3. Julia E. Johnsen, Selected Articles on Child Labor (New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1925), 28. 4. Hugh D. Hindman, Child Labor: An American History (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2002), 32. 5. Trattner, Crusade for the Children, 41. 6. Trattner, Crusade for the Children, 47–51, 55. Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 2018 3 The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing, Vol. 47 [2018], Iss. 1, Art. 10 Focusing on “The Human Document”  137 child labor bills;7 however, they recognized the need for a federal law. The two child labor committees soon joined forces, and on 15 April 1904, the National Child Labor Committee met for the first time under the direction of Felix Adler as president and Edgar Murphy as secretary. That night, Adler delivered a speech in which he emphasized the importance of gathering information about child labor “since a knowledge of the facts will be the most useful of all means of accomplishing results.”8 In essence, the newly formed NCLC saw the collection and publication of data as its greatest asset in agitating for child labor legislation. However, they were unable to repeat Murphy’s success on the national stage. At the time of the NCLC’s conception, large numbers of children were hired in coal mines, glass houses, and textile factories. Still more worked in agricultural production, while others did “homework” in the tenements. The NCLC published some thirty-five hundred pieces of literature and announcements and 45,500 pamphlets in a single year, each containing detailed statistical descriptions of child labor, or the “facts” Adler had emphasized. It also published the proceedings of its conferences in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.9 Although their written material proliferated, the NCLC’s publications would not have the desired effect on public opinion until they included Lewis Hine’s photographs. Lewis Wickes Hine was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in 1874. He began working in a furniture factory at the young age of sixteen in order to support his mother and sister following his father’s suicide.10 Over the next five years, he also worked cutting wood, delivering packages, and selling door to door while attending night school. With the help of Frank Manny, an educator at the Ethical Culture School and progressive reformer, Hine enrolled at the University of Chicago in 1900 and went on to receive a master’s degree in pedagogy from New York University in 1905.11 During this time, he made the acquaintance of Felix Adler and Owen Lovejoy, who would succeed Adler as the president of the NCLC. 7. Trattner, Crusade for the Children, 57. 8. Trattner, Crusade for the Children, 58–59. 9. Trattner, Crusade for the Children, 75. 10. Mary Panzer, Lewis Hine (New York: Phaidon Press Limited, 2002), 3. 11. Kate Sampsell-Willmann, Lewis Hine as Social Critic (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009), 18. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/thetean/vol47/iss1/10 4 Jessop: Child labor photography 138 The Thetean In the summer of 1908, Hine left his teaching position and became a full-time photographer for the NCLC.12 During the next decade, he wrote detailed investigation reports, took thousands of photographs, and headed exhibitions for the NCLC, sometimes traveling as many as thirty thousand miles in a single year—all in an effort to raise public awareness and call for social change.13 Hine would become known as “the father of social documentary photography” because of his powerful photographs, which were a result of both his artistic style and ideology.14 His work focused on what he called “the human document;”15 his photographs emphasized people over conditions.16 In a letter likely addressed to one of Hine’s former associates at the Ethical Center School, Hine wrote, “My child labor photos have already set the authorities to work to see ‘if such things can be possible.’ They try to get around them by crying ‘fake,’ but therein lies the value of data & a witness. My ‘sociological horizon’ broadens hourly.”17 In the years that followed, the detailed data of the NCLC would authenticate Hine’s photographs, the purpose and power of which lay in transforming bystanders into witnesses. In June 1909, Hine delivered a lecture titled “Social Photography: How the Camera May Help in the Social Uplift” at the thirty-sixth annual session of the National Conference of Charities and Correction in Buffalo, New York. While using a stereopticon, a type of slide projector, to present his photographs, Hine outlined what he believed to be the reason for photography’s pivotal role in social reform: We might pause to ask where lies the power in a picture. Whether it be a painting or a photograph, the picture is a symbol that brings one immediately into close touch with reality. It speaks a language learned early in the race and in the individual . . . For us older children, the picture continues to tell a story packed into the most condensed and vital form. In fact, it is often more effective than the reality would have been, because, in the picture, the non-essential and conflicting interests have been eliminated. The picture is the language of all nationalities and all ages.18 12. Daile Kaplan, ed., Photo Story: Selected Letters and Photographs of Lewis W. Hine (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992), 4. 13. Panzer, Lewis Hine, 7. 14. Sampsell-Willmann, Lewis Hine as Social Critic, 3. 15. Sampsell-Willmann, Lewis Hine as Social Critic, 21. 16. Sampsell-Willmann, Lewis Hine as Social Critic, 63. 17. Kaplan, ed., Photo Story, 7. 18. Lewis W. Hine, “Social Photography; How the Camera May Help in the Social Uplift,” Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction at the Thirty-sixth Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 2018 5 The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing, Vol. 47 [2018], Iss. 1, Art. 10 Focusing on “The Human Document”  139 Each of Hine’s photographs was carefully crafted. Although his subject matter was by no means fabricated, his photographs were a calculated portrayal of the truth. Rather than focus on the factory itself or the sheer number of child laborers within it, Hine presented the public with the coal-blackened face or mangled hand of a single child, or the dirty, barefoot appearance of small groups of child laborers in mines, fields, factories, and city streets. Hine held his camera level with the faces of his subjects, forcing the viewer to look directly into their eyes. Academics have long argued that photographs are not truthful representations of reality and therefore not reliable sources; however, historian Kate Sampsell-­Willmann argues that historians are able to treat photographs “as primary sources of ideas.”19 As the title of her book Lewis Hine as Social Critic indicates, she asserts that Hine was not only a photographer, but also a critic, and thus, when studied within the larger political, intellectual, and social context of the time, each photograph represents a specific ideological statement that is Hine’s alone, not the camera’s. This claim is of great significance to other scholars in that it reevaluates and reshapes the way historians use photographs; namely, as “primary sources of ideas” rather than fundamentally untrustworthy representations of the past. By effectively interpreting Hine’s photographs as evidence of his own specific ideology, Sampsell’s book helps historians to analyze photographs in a new way and to see Hine and other reformers as both artists and intellectuals. Decades before Sampsell, the NCLC recognized the potential power in Hine’s method and harnessed it to communicate a specific message to the observer in order to change public opinion. For this reason, Hine and the NCLC published thousands of pages of literature featuring his photographs coupled with articles and reports detailing the conditions of child labor and calling for change. The NCLC published ninety-one folders’ worth of investigation reports, which included more than four hundred documents, each anywhere from one to several hundred pages in length. The majority of these reports were written between 1908 and 1915. Most are comprised of the notes of “a single investigator studying child labor conditions in a single industry in a single state or region,” but some include the notes of multiple investigators about multiple industries in multiple states.20 Each investigation, systematic in its organization Annual Session held in the City of Buffalo, New York, June 9–16, 1909, (Fort Wayne, IN: Press of Fort Wayne, 1909), 355–59. 19. Sampsell-Willmann, Lewis Hine as Social Critic, 3. 20. Hindman, Child Labor, 379. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/thetean/vol47/iss1/10 6 Jessop: Child labor photography 140 The Thetean and meticulous in its detail, provided foundational evidence on which the NCLC built their case for child labor reform. Hine himself proved to be a valuable and resourceful investigator. In the late summer of 1908, he received his first traveling assignment from the NCLC leadership: Hine was to spend five weeks working in several industrial Midwest cities, West Virginian mining towns, and North Carolinian textile mills. As part of this assignment, Hine accompanied another NCLC investigator, Edward Clopper, who later wrote that Hine “displayed both tact and resourcefulness . . . and gathered a large amount of valuable material, not only photographic.”21 During this first investigative assignment, Hine produced more than 230 photographs. In time, Hine, together with six other investigators, would write sixty-five of the NCLC’s ninety-one published reports. Trained in stenography, Hine was able to take detailed shorthand notes. When denied entrance by employers, he would pose as some kind of salesman or magazine representative in order to gain access to certain factories or mills. Ever resourceful, he often measured the children’s height against the buttonholes of his coat.22 In addition to the notes he kept on small cards hidden in his pocket, Hine took special care to record a detailed caption for each of his photographs. Between the years of 1908 and 1917, Hine’s notes and photographs were included in twenty-eight investigation reports ranging from New England textiles to California agriculture to Vermont street trades.23 Like the leaders of the NCLC, Hine valued data in that it corroborated the social injustices exposed in his photographs, rendering his argument even more impactful. “Child Labor in the Sugar-Beet Fields of Colorado” is one of the investigation reports that included both Hine’s photographs and Clopper’s writings. The text includes descriptions of the children, their work, and their families’ living conditions, as well as tables of statistics representing both the number and ages of children working in agriculture in relation to total enrollment, absences, and “per cent of pupils retarded, normal, ahead enrolled by grades.”24 Hine’s photographs show young children hoeing, “topping,” “thinning,” and pulling beets. One photograph displays a boy holding a beet on one knee seconds before 21. Panzer, Lewis Hine, 32. 22. Hindman, Child Labor, 380. 23. Hindman, Child Labor, 384. 24. Edward N. Clopper and Lewis W. Hine, Child Labor in the Sugar-Beet Fields of Colorado (New York: National Child Labor Committee, Inc., 1916), 30. Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 2018 7 The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing, Vol. 47 [2018], Iss. 1, Art. 10 Focusing on “The Human Document”  141 using the enormous sixteen-inch knife in his hand to cut off the top of the beet. The text accompanying the image informs the reader that “as the knee is not protected, children not infrequently hook themselves in the leg.”25 Unlike the NCLC’s earliest reports, which were comprised of only statistical data and saw limited success in the communities in which they were published, reports such as this one, which combined detailed findings with photographs, proved to be much more effective in changing public opinion because they put faces to previously impersonal numbers. From 1913 to 1917, Hine worked as the head of the NCLC’s exhibition department. To fulfill this role, he designed posters and prepared storyboards to illustrate the objectives of the NCLC.26 He also gave presentations in which he used a stereopticon to project images of his photographs while lecturing. Hine’s exhibits attracted thousands of people. In 1911, Hine directed the Child Welfare Exhibit in the seventy-first Regiment Armory in Manhattan. Approximately 2,050 people, nearly 10 percent of the total population of New York County at the time, attended the exhibit during the twenty-six days that it was open to the public.27 Strings of statistics alone would never have elicited such a turnout. New Yorkers came to Hine’s exhibit to look into the faces of child laborers, and were impacted by what they saw and felt. The exhibits provided a venue in which observers could have a personal experience with Hine’s photographs and their subjects. Exhibition panels, or posters combining Hine’s images and powerful statements condemning child labor, were also an effective way to broadcast the NCLC’s message to the American people. They included such strong headlines as “Children may Escape the Cogs of the Machine but They Cannot Escape the Deadening Effect of Long Hours, Monotonous Toil, Loss of Education, Vicious Surroundings . . . Would You Care to Have Your Child Pay THIS Price?”28 This particular poster features a photograph of a smiling “normal child” juxtaposed with a photograph of a deadpan “mill child.” Hine’s exhibitions often contrasted current work conditions with successful or ideal change, clearly illustrating the benefits of social reform. 25. Clopper and Hine, Child Labor in the Sugar-Beet Fields of Colorado, 12. 26. Panzer, Lewis Hine, 9. 27. Sampsell-Willmann, Lewis Hine as Social Critic, 82–83. 28. Panzer, Lewis Hine, 40. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/thetean/vol47/iss1/10 8 Jessop: Child labor photography 142 The Thetean At times, Hine edited his photographs in order to make his message as clear and effective as possible. For example, his poster “Making Human Junk” (figure 1), publicized in 1914 and 1915, provides a visual representation of children, “good material at first,” taken from the streets and forced to work in a textile factory—a process that turned them into “junk” with “no future and low wages.”29 In order to make this message as powerful as possible, Hine cropped a smiling girl out of the photograph, leaving behind three straight-faced mill girls. By editing the photograph in this way, Hine again contrasts the images of children at work with those who attend school, visually reinforcing the NCLC’s demand for Figure 1. child labor legislation allowing children to gain an education rather than toil in factories. Similarly, another of the NCLC’s posters states, “‘Children are not equipped by experience to care for themselves in modern industry’ and so They Pay With a Maimed Life. Three times as many industrial accidents occur to children as adults.”30 At the center of the poster (figure 2) are two of Hine’s photographs, both individual portraits of boys—one who lost his arm “running [a] saw in box factory,” ca. 1909, and a twelve-year-old boy who was employed in a cotton manufacturing company in North Carolina and fell into the gears of a spinning machine, which tore off two of his fingers in 1912.31 This poster provides a simple example of the powerful addition of Hine’s photographs to the NCLC’s emphasis on presenting the facts of child labor to the public. Rather than simply reading that “three times as many industrial accidents occur to children 29. Sampsell-Willmann, Lewis Hine as Social Critic, 81. 30. “1913: The Exploitation of Child Workers.” http://inquiryunlimited.org/ss_1900s/1913​_​ child_labor/1913_child_labor.html (accessed April 1, 2017). 31. Panzer, Lewis Hine, 80. Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 2018 9 The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing, Vol. 47 [2018], Iss. 1, Art. 10 Focusing on “The Human Document”  143 as adults,” the viewer is confronted with the small, mangled bodies and pitiful faces of two child laborers. This added a human element to the NCLC’s publications that had been largely missing prior to the inclusion of Hine’s photographs. One of Hine’s most powerful posters, published in 1913, includes a map of the United States filled with dozens of photographs of child laborers (figure 3). The images have been resized and cropped in order to completely fill the space with the faces of children at work. The map is surrounded with a chain whose links are labeled with the names of the industries that NCLC members thought were to blame for what they saw as injustice toward child laborers. Beneath this, the poster cries out, “Child Labor is a National Menace / Figure 2. THE CHILD LABOR CHAIN / Shall We Let Industry Shackle the Nation.”32 Although each child’s portrait is compelling on its own, the placement of multiple photographs within the “chained” United States makes the NCLC’s purpose clearer and more powerful, conveying in moments what would normally fill pages of an investigative report. Although Hine’s photographs were published in the thousands of pages of NCLC investigation reports, they reached an even wider audience through newspapers and other periodicals. The 8 January 1910 edition of Harper’s Weekly, a popular illustrated news journal that had surpassed two hundred thousand copies per issue,33 included an article by Frank Marshall White titled “The Babies Who Work.” The article discusses the proposed “Children’s Bureau” bill that was to be introduced in the next session of Congress. In addition to describing 32. Hindman, Child Labor, 82. 33. Theodore Peterson, Magazines in the Twentieth Century (Urbana: The University of Illinois Press, 1956), 55. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/thetean/vol47/iss1/10 10 Jessop: Child labor photography 144 The Thetean the reasons necessitating the creation of the Children’s Bureau, the article also provides statistical information regarding child labor in the United States and ends by explicitly stating the aims of the NCLC. The article is illustrated with four large prints of Hine’s photographs, including a six-yearold newsboy, “a child spinner,” “a typical group of spinners,” (the youngest of which had already been working there for five years), and “a group of spinners and doffers in a South Carolina cotton-mill, where they work twelve hours daily.” These photographs heighten the effect of the article by presenting the reader with a visual representation of those who would be affected by the creation of the Children’s Bureau and introducFigure 3. ing the reader to the work of the NCLC. Hine saw the most widespread publication of his photographs in 1914 and 1915 as the NCLC used them to garner support for the Palmer-Owen bill, which was introduced in Congress during this time. Like the Beveridge bill of 1906, the Palmer-Owen bill established fourteen as the minimum age for factory work and limited the workday of employees between the ages of fourteen and sixteen to eight hours; however, it also banned products of child labor from interstate commerce.34 On 15 July 1914, the Willmar Tribune of Minnesota published a short article titled “Dr. Adler Favors Palmer-Owen Bill: Child Labor Measure Pending Before Congress—Federal Law Badly Needed” together with Hine’s photograph of a boy “at midnight in a glass factory.” This article, like the one in Harper’s Weekly a few years earlier, effectively connected Hine’s photographs 34. Hindman, Child Labor, 65. Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 2018 11 The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing, Vol. 47 [2018], Iss. 1, Art. 10 Focusing on “The Human Document”  145 with the current political question of child labor. The Palmer-Owen bill passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 237 to 45 on 13 February 1915.35 The Evening Star in Washington, D.C., as well as numerous other newspapers across the nation, often published short announcements about upcoming NCLC conferences or exhibits. In this case, “Children’s Labor Conference Topic: National Organization to Meet in Washington Tuesday and Wednesday,” was published in the 3 January 1915 paper. Later that month, the paper printed a half-page spread titled “Child Labor Exhibit for Panama-Pacific Exposition” that included five of Hine’s photographs which were labeled “New York Tenement Workers Making Artificial Flowers,” “Boy Worker in a Cotton Mill,” “These Little Girls Shucked Oysters in a Canning Factory,” “The Children Work All Day Picking Nuts,” and “Children in the Field Picking Cotton.” These photographs again lend the article, which includes statistics about the widespread and exploitative nature of child labor and details about the federal child labor bill drafted by the NCLC, new weight and meaning. Although the Palmer-Owen bill passed in the House of Representatives on in 1915, it was blocked in the Senate, and the session ended without a vote on this issue. To avoid a second dismissal of its bill, the NCLC mounted a concerted effort to disseminate their information from August to December of that same year. To accomplish this, a series of the NCLC’s articles was published throughout the country. These included “No Children in the Mines: California Eliminates Children Under Sixteen From Mines and Quarries,” “Forestalling Child Labor,” “Special Favors to Tennessee Canners: Amendment to Child Labor Law Passed This Year—Need for a Federal Law,” and “Messenger Service a ‘Crime Factory,’” among others. The articles usually included one or two of Hine’s portrait photographs of boys working in coal mines. Within a few months, these articles appeared in Newberry, South Carolina’s The Herald and News; Berea, Kentucky’s The Citizen; The Bismarck Daily Tribune; The Guthrie Daily Leader; The Ogden Standard; The Labor World; Golden Valley Chronicle; The Patriot Volume; and other newspapers across the country. Many people who otherwise would not have viewed Hine’s photographs or read the NCLC’s statistics were exposed to both through these newspapers. The Palmer-Owen proposition was successfully reintroduced in the next session of Congress as the Keating-Owen bill. Leading newspapers in at least 35. Hindman, Child Labor, 66. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/thetean/vol47/iss1/10 12 Jessop: Child labor photography 146 The Thetean thirty-two states published editorials in support of the Keating-Owen bill.36 Some rallied support through emotional appeals. One impassioned article published in the Chicago Tribune declared, “[Child labor] challenges our hearts and our brains. There should be no more doubt about its abolition than about the enforcement of a statute against murder, or the appropriation of money to check a plague.”37 The publication of the detailed findings of the NCLC’s investigations, coupled with Hine’s photographs, “challenged” both the mind and heart of the nation. Despite this display of public support for the bill, it was repeatedly struck from the Senate calendar by those who opposed it. This opposition came primarily from manufacturing Southern Congressmen who claimed the bill violated states’ rights. Although the House passed the bill by a vote of 343 to 46 (a vote that transcended party lines), Senator Lee Overman of North Carolina caused the bill to be set aside again in early June 1916, just before Congress recessed for the national political conventions. During these conventions, in response to the public’s growing awareness and concern, both the Republicans and the Democrats adopted planks favoring “the prohibition of child labor”38 to their platforms. In spite of this, Southern Congressmen continued to oppose the Keating-Owen bill and even threatened to filibuster the bill if it was introduced again. However, a month later, due to “public pressure for immediate enactment,”39 President Woodrow Wilson announced to party leaders that he would not accept the Democratic renomination unless the Keating-Owen bill was passed during the current session. The bill was reintroduced on the Senate floor on 3 August 1916. This time it passed by a vote of 52 to 12 with 32 Senators abstaining from the vote. On 1 September, President Wilson signed the Keating-Owen bill into law. The next day, he formally accepted the Democratic renomination and discussed some of his achievements, including “the emancipation of the children of the nation by releasing them from hurtful labor.”40 The public had been heard in the highest levels of government; the “chain of child labor” had been broken. The NCLC saw minimal success in affecting public opinion and the passage of child labor legislation during its first few years of operation. However, 36. Trattner, Crusade for the Children, 126. 37. “Child Labor,” Chicago Tribune, July 28, 1916. 38. Trattner, Crusade for the Children, 129. 39. Trattner, Crusade for the Children, 130. 40. Trattner, Crusade for the Children, 131. Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 2018 13 The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing, Vol. 47 [2018], Iss. 1, Art. 10 Focusing on “The Human Document”  147 the inclusion of Lewis Hine’s powerful, personal photographs transformed the NCLC’s literature from strings of faceless statistics into shocking, intimate confrontations with the harsh realities of child labor. Rather than simply reading the details of an investigative report, readers now looked into the young, innocent faces of child laborers. The combination of the NCLC’s meticulous statistics and writings with Hine’s compelling photographs in investigative reports, exhibition panels, posters, and newspapers changed public opinion as an increasingly larger percentage of the American population was exposed to Hine’s “human document.” In response to the rising public outcry over child labor, Congress passed the Keating-Owen bill, establishing maximum workday and minimum age parameters for child laborers. Lewis Hine set a new standard for using photography to garner support for social reform by directing the public eye to shocking images of conditions and lives he wanted to change. Miranda Jessop is an aspiring historian who loves learning and sharing knowledge with others. She studied German for six years before serving in the Illinois Chicago West Mission, Spanish-speaking. Miranda currently studies both languages, is part of the BYU Honors Program, maintains a 4.0 GPA, and works as a closed captioner at BYU Broadcasting. She enjoys exploring the world through music and dance. For years, she danced as a soloist and member of the company class of the Utah Artists’ School of Ballet and is now part of BYU Folk Dance. In her free time, she also likes to cycle and spend time with her four younger brothers, who have taught her football skills, tae kwon do moves, and how to laugh. Miranda also has a passion for service and has spent time volunteering in high school credit recovery classes and teaching free English classes to Spanish speakers. Miranda recently received the Sechin Jagchid Award in Non-Western History, is also being published in Spanish this semester, and will intern in the Volkskundemuseum (Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art) in Vienna this spring. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/thetean/vol47/iss1/10 14 Sample Paper #1 [Student Name] [Assignment Name] [Date] [Instructor’s Name] Details of Renaissance Paintings (Sandro Botticelli, Birth of Venus, 1482) (1984) by Andy Warhol acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen Viewed at Arkansas Arts Center Andy Warhol exhibition (October 28, 2008) A Modern Venus Andy Warhol’s piece titled Details of Renaissance Paintings (Sandro Botticelli, Birth of Venus, 1482) represents the face of the goddess Venus. This piece was made in 1984 as a depiction of the face of Venus from the earlier painting The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli that was completed in 1482. The piece’s present location is the Arkansas Arts Center, and its original location is the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The piece is acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen, and it can only be seen from one side because it is hanging on the wall. The work is a colorful representation of the face of the goddess Venus as depicted earlier in The Birth of Venus by Botticelli. However, Warhol uses more colors in his work. Venus’s face and neck are pink while her hair is black, red, orange, and yellow. In contrast, the background is a solid light blue color. In Details of Renaissance Paintings, Venus’s face and hair are emphasized and the dominant elements are her hair because of the warm colors and her gaze. Warhol uses implied lines to direct viewers’ eyes around the artwork. The implied lines are the strands of Venus’s hair that direct viewers’ eyes to the right bottom, middle, and top because the strands are going in each of these directions. One bundle of hair goes down to the bottom of the piece on the left side close to her face. This bundle of hair brings some direction to the left side, but not a lot because the left side is mostly empty. However, this emptiness is balanced asymmetrically by Venus’s gaze toward the bottom left corner and the light color used in the empty space. The light color of the empty space is visually light; therefore, it does not have as much weight as the darker, warmer colors of Venus’s face and hair. This visual lightness along with Venus’ gaze is strong enough to balance the multitude of hair and part of a flower on the right side. This artwork is composed of shapes because it is two-dimensional. Most of the shapes are formed by lines and shifts in color. For example, Venus’s red hair is formed by a shift from the blue background and her pink upper body. Lines outlining her hair in certain places also give form to the shape of her hair. Therefore, both lines and shift in color are used together in some places and separate in other places to create the shapes in the artwork. In this piece, the light source is not seen. However, the light source is to the left of the artwork because Warhol uses a light yellow color on top of the pink color that is already present on the left side of Venus’s face which makes it seem like a glow is cast upon her face. Warhol’s use of warm colors for Venus, her hair, and the plant in the top right corner contrasts with the light blue background. These warm colors make her stand out from the background. Also, the warm colors against a calming blue background give Venus an ethereal quality. Warhol’s use of colors also creates unity and variety. His use of warm colors throughout the piece and his use of one solid-colored background create unity in the artwork. However, the contrast between warm colors and the cool color create variety. The flower in the top right corner also creates variety because it is not a part of Venus, who is the focus. The flower is the only other thing in the artwork besides Venus which makes the viewer question its purpose. The placement of Venus’s hair and the curves of her hair create a sense of motion. One bundle of her hair is at the bottom of the artwork. Another few bundles are in the middle and are slightly separated. Another bundle of hair is at the top of the artwork. All of these bundles are curvy to suggest movement as if her hair is being blown gently by the wind. Warhol’s use of colors gives Venus a modern look instead of the traditional white color used in The Birth of Venus that symbolized purity. The pink color used for her body makes Venus seem bold and strong, not just beautiful, as a female goddess should be. Warhol further shows this by only depicting her face down to her shoulders and not including her breasts and other sensual parts that are included in The Birth of Venus. Through his use of color, Warhol created a different symbol of boldness and strength for Venus instead of the traditional symbol of beauty. This boldness and strength coincides with the role of women in modern society because women today are taught that they can accomplish anything and everything while being independent. Sample Paper #2 [Student Name] [Assignment Name] [Date] [Instructor’s Name] Statue of Liberty (1962) by Andy Warhol Approx. 80 x 61 in. Silkscreen ink and spray paint on linen Viewed at Arkansas Arts Center Andy Warhol exhibition (October 26, 2008) A Formal Analysis of Andy Warhol’s Statue of Liberty Andy Warhol created his silk screen painting Statue of Liberty in 1962 using silkscreen ink and spray paint on linen. Just as the title suggests, the painting’s subject is the Statue of Liberty, repeated in a pattern twelve times (not including the right side of the painting where the image repeats four additional times, but is cut off). The painting is currently being exhibited at the Arkansas Arts Center, but it belongs to the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is relatively large at 80 by 61 inches (that’s bigger than me!). One must look up at the painting if not standing far enough away to view it in its entirety. The image that repeats twelve times in the painting is that of the Statue of Liberty standing face on, and we view her from her legs up. We are able to see her torch, or at least most of it, and the horizon in the background. The painting is mostly in the cool hue of blue, but not in its normal value; it may have some green mixed in with it. In contrast to the blue, there is the warm hue of red visible in the top right quarter of the painting. The painting is not centered on the linen, but rather somewhat aligned to the right, so there is a significant amount of unused or unpainted space on the left side. The repetition of the statue’s image gives the work a sense of unity, while the differences between the twelve images in the pattern (and there are many) offer variety. It appears as though the image of the statue itself is not painted for the most part, but it must be to some degree or it would not be distinguishable, so it must be a significantly lighter value than the blue that colors in the ocean. The sky in the background is the color of linen. The blue and/or red paint (depending on which rectangle it is) fills in the ocean in the bottom two thirds of each rectangular image. In about three fourths of the rectangles there is a cloud of blue in a darker value than that used on the statue that shrouds the statue’s face and/or torch, preventing us from seeing the entire image clearly. There are two rectangles at the top right corner of the work in which red paint is used, if you do not count the rectangles to the far right that are cut off. Because the painting is aligned to the right, and because the red paint is only used in the rectangles in the top right corner, there appears to be more weight on the right and less on the left, more weight on the top and less on the bottom. It looks like someone is pulling the painting up and away by its top right corner, like a tissue being pulled out of a tissue box. The torch the statue holds, though it is certainly an implied line, surprisingly does not direct my eyes elsewhere. A grid of six implied lines is created by the repetition of the image. They are in between the four columns and four rows, unpainted and the color of linen. A line is created where the bluish ocean and the linen-colored sky meet. There are subtle, unstable lines that imply motion in the water behind the statue, more subtly in some rectangles than in others. Besides the shapes I have already described in the painting, the screen printing technique has left some areas of unpainted linen, particularly in the top row, where you find what is almost a perfect right triangle on the right side of the statue. Also, in the third row you find an organic but otherwise indistinguishable shape which slightly resembles a jagged mountain range. There is light in each rectangle illuminating the statue and the ocean and modeling the statue’s three dimensions. The color value of the repeated image changes from rectangle to rectangle, very clouded in some and extremely clear in others. Because the face of the Statue of Liberty varies between clearly visible, somewhat visible and entirely covered from rectangle to rectangle, the presentation changes with each second your eyes moves across the painting. The statue is fixed, providing unity, because regardless of what we are able or not able to see in any given rectangle, we know it is the Statue of Liberty. It’s the movement (or the complete disappearance) of the cloud that gives the pattern its variety. If symmetrical balance is used to express order, then this work is slightly unbalanced in that regard because of the tissue box effect I mentioned earlier. The empty space on the left side of the painting is somewhat balanced by the red paint in the upper right corner, but not to the degree that I would consider asymmetrically balanced. You might think the cloud-like shape that covers the face of the statue is an effort to either emphasize or subordinate the statue’s face or the torch she holds, but I think it’s not her face we are suppose to care about so much as the fact that she is covered or uncovered in various ways in an inconsistent manner. The Statue of Liberty is gigantic (I presume, because I have not seen it myself), but here its image is presented in a shrunken size and then multiplied by twelve. The rectangles are all in correct proportion to one another, and the movement of the cloud of blue creates an overtly even rhythm that envelops the whole piece. The Statue of Liberty represents more than I can fully explain in this paper. The label next to Statue of Liberty mentioned that Warhol was an immigrant and used the term “generic” to describe the terms in which Warhol or others may have thought about immigration to America (I don’t remember the exact wording. I think the repetition of the image in twelve different rectangles represents the wide variety of experiences that people have when immigrating to this country, and the movement of the blue cloud represents the differences among experiences. The empty space on the left side of the painting implies that the ideal America—the America that immigrants dream of going to—is not as all-encompassing as some people might think. In other words, the greatness of the dream falls a bit short in reality. Warhol has taken the Statue of Liberty, with its hard, smooth surface, shrunken it significantly, multiplied it by twelve, and made it hard and gritty in every single repetition. His screen printing technique leaves a kind of blob covering the statue in different areas, and this gives the painting a quality of elusiveness. This elusiveness lends itself to the idea that the general perception of immigration to America is a generic one, and yet it could turn out to be so many different things, depending on how much money you have and who you know. Sample Paper #3 [Student Name] [Assignment Name] [Date] [Instructor’s Name] Your Turn (2002) by Katherine A. Strause Approximately 6‘x 4’ Oil, Silkscreen, Mixed Media on Canvas “Katherine A. Strause: American Trees in Summer” at University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Gallery 1 The artwork, which is vertical in its organization, is made up of six strips of color and floral fabric running in a vertical direction. On the left three squares, each with a different subject, line up again in a vertical fashion each with a different background color which are (in descending order) orange, green and red. The orange square contains a revolver/gun, the green square contains a sporting event scene, and the red contains a rose, all of which are line drawings in black. Overlapping the lower portion of the orange square is a smaller square canvas representing what looks like a still life of lemons and other fruit with a pink background. On the green square Strause has again placed a smaller canvas with a fruit-like composition, this one with a blue background. Above the orange square appear four red circles beginning at the top and extending horizontally stopping at the mid-point. Taking up the entire right side of the work is a still life of a flower arrangement sitting on a stool. Throughout the piece, Strause has used a wide range of bright colors. In the flower arrangement, Strause has used an intense blue line which outlines the flowers and the stool, perhaps this use of color in the line is intended to push the subject forward on the two-dimensional space, making it stand out. The line looks to have been made with a pastel medium, with its less than solid appearance. The flowers themselves are depicted using organic shapes to give the illusion of an iris and other flowers. The overall use of color and shape is simplistic, yet true to the nature of each particular flower. The flowers seem to reach out past the squares at the left, which seem to be on the top of the flowers since one just sees the stems on the other side. Mass doesn’t seem to be important to Strause, as she has used the indication of three-dimensionality only sparingly with a hint of highlight on a few flowers and on the clear glass vase holding them. Another effect used to show three-dimensionality is the shadow left by the arrangement, green in color, and the stools legs receding by being higher than the legs in the foreground. Again, the attempt seems to be a crude one, as though a naturalistic portrayal was not important. The large vertical panel of the floral fabric gives a sense of texture to the background of the flower arrangement, as does the energetic application of the paint in both the fruit and the flowers. Balance is achieved, although asymmetrical, by the large flower arrangement on the right and the squares on the left. Although the left side of the artwork has more geometric shapes and the right side has more organic shapes, indicating variety, Strause has achieved a sense of unity with her use of color. The orange, green and red of the squares are utilized in the colors of the flowers and also the shadow of the vase. This use of a wide range of colors is another sign of variety in the piece. The focal point in the work is the flower arrangement, which is quite large on the canvas and is “pushed” forward in space by the use of the intense blue line emphasizing the contours of shapes of the flowers, vase and the stool. There is a wide range of media used in this artwork, including: oil paint, silk screen, fabric, and pastel. This shows the adeptness of the artist in a variety of media. The subjects inside the squares on the left of the painting are applied using a silkscreen method. The use of line here appears more carefully planned, showing the precision of the artist. The backgrounds of both the red and green squares are more carefully applied, in that the boxes are filled by the color, than that of the orange square with its unfinished appearance. The four red circles arranged horizontally across the tops of the left side of the painting are also painted as if left unfinished. The silk screen shows Strause’s accuracy in drawing, while truthfully creating the likeness of a rose. Her technique in applying the oil paint varies in the artwork. At times, the paint is carefully applied leaving no spaces, such as within the red and green squares. In other cases, Strause’s application of the paint seems more erratic and quick such as the orange square and the flowers. This gives a feeling of action and enthusiasm, unlike the feeling of easiness in carefully applied paint. As I sit and stare at Strause’s work of art, I ponder the title: Your Turn. Looking at the colors used in the square panels on the left (red, green, orange), I notice that these colors are like the colors of a stoplight. The orange being seemingly unfinished suggests quickness in the paint’s application, perhaps implying the quickness at which people speed through an orange light. Also, the color orange is synonymous with “caution” and inside the orange square is a gun. This combination is a powerful suggestion of warning. In the green square, there is a scene of men running with a ball, which exemplifies motion. Both the green color and the action of the scene suggest “go”. The red square contains a rose, of which most people associate with the color red. Where Strause has used items in the previous squares that go along with the stoplight theory, the rose seems to be a different matter. It doesn’t overtly suggest “stop” as would the red of a stoplight. However, red is also symbolic of “love”, which could mean a stopping point in the search for love or red symbolizes blood which when lost in great quantities could mean the stopping of life. The four red circles at the top left arranged horizontally stopping at the middle, can also go along with the stop light theory. The circles seem to be a representation of blinking lights, which is another type of stoplight. The vertical stripes in the background could possibly convey roadways. All of this traffic signal symbolization leads us back to the title of the piece—Your Turn. At stoplights, people take turns moving across the intersection perhaps that is the reason for the title. However, the flower arrangement, colossal in size, takes up most of the space and seems to be the most important subject of the piece. The blue line used to outline the shapes appears neon-like forcing the arrangement to move forward in space and to gain the attention of the viewer. These two aspects alone imply that it is the focus of the artist’s intent. All said, I believe that Strause is conveying her concept of life. She shows us the “traffic signals” and “highway” verticals as a way of portraying the fast paced life most of us lead. As life is being represented in the squares, Strause is suggesting that this life we lead does indeed produce a product (i.e. the fruits of our labors) in the fruit laid on top of the underlying squares. The intense flower arrangement is what she is really trying to convey as a thought, with its immense size and bright colors. It is, perhaps, her way of saying that we should stop and smell the flowers making sure we are enjoying life as we journey through existence. 
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