Continuation school girls looping stocking in Ipswich Mills

Photographs

1917

National Child Labor Committee Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

A sepia toned image of a black and white photograph of young white girls, in their teens, working in a factory. There is a line of girls that starts in the center of the photograph and extends into the background towards the right of the photo. The line comprises eight young women sitting at complex looking metal machinery, each with a large box of loose stockings on the floor to her right. The girls are focusing intently on hanging the stockings from a circular part of the machines at their eye level. They each sit in a black wooden chair, have their hair back, and wear the same clothing: a white blouse and a long grey skirt. The wall in the background of the photograph has three large windows in it with multiple window panes, giving the room natural light. It does not look like the windows can be opened. There are more people working at other machines in the background of the image to the far left. The bottom right corner of the photograph has been destroyed in some way, there is a large splotch of off-white where the photograph should continue.

School girls making stockings in Ipswich Mills, just north of Boston. This photo was taken by Lewis Wickes Hine in 1917 in order to document both legal and illegal child labor in the United States for the National Child Labor Committee. One of the WTUL's most successful campaigns was the one to abolish child labor.

This photograph was taken by Lewis Wickes Hine in Ipswich Mills north of Boston. At the time, Hine was making a report about child labor in all its forms for the National Child Labor Committee.

Click here to learn more about Lewis Wickes Hine and his work

To learn more about the Ipswich Mills, check out “Ipswich Mills and Factories” on the Historic Ipswich website.

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