Saginaw High School - Aurora Yearbook (Saginaw, MI)

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CHILD-LABOR IN THE SOUTH. The young flowers are blowing toward the West— But the young, young children, oh my brothers, They are weeping bitterly! They are weeping in the playtime of the others, In the country of the free.—Mrs. Browning. The problem of child-labor in the South is a difficult one to cope with. It is the same obstacle which confronted England in 1816 when pauper children were compelled to work fifteen or sixteen hours a day, even at the age of six years. This unfortunate condition was bettered in 1833 by the Earl of Shaftesbury, who carried a bill in Parliament, which provided that children under 13 years of age should be limited to eight hours of labor in the mills. Children between the ages of thirteen and eighteen were prohibited from working more than twelve hours a day. Even as late as 1841 it was after a long struggle, that Shaftesbury suc- ceeded in establishing the limit of labor for all women and children at ten hours a day. This question concerning child-labor has been brought up wherever textile factories are prevalent. In South Carolina nearly twenty-five per cent, of the mill operatives are children under fourteen years of age. These .children, some of them mere babes, toil from eleven to twelve hours per day, obtaining for this labor from ten to fifty cents. Some of the mills in South Carolina, which are under the supervision of a poor force employ chiefly children, ranging all the way from six to sixteen years of age. On the contrary, many mill superintendents refuse to engage them unless they have attained the age of fourteen years. 29

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Territorial Growth of the United States... Hattie Kober. Alaska.......................................Dora M. Hall. The Hawaiian Islands.....................Lillian Boynton. Tutuila..................................Dorothea Prall. Mindanas...................................Angela La Bar. Luzon........................................Rose Reitter. Porto Rico.........................Gertrude Vanderhoof. Cuba.......................................Minnie Einfalt. Panama..............................................Robert Granville. Guam..................................................Cara Loveland. Toward the end of the school year, we began to realize that we would soon lose the Seniors, and to express the love, which we had always felt for them, but perhaps had not always shown, a Dance and Reception was given in P. P. P. hall. Will that event ever be forgotten? Those decorations 1 those dances! those fire-escapes! Later in the evening the Senior president presented the much desired horn to our president, who accepted it with a few impressive words and then blew a resounding (?) blast on it. after which it was immediately hidden. As our funds were in need of replenishment, we studious and dignified (?) Seniors decided to give a Rag-time Musical, a form of entertainment which had never before been attempted in our High School. Evidences of the success of the concert were the great applause and numerous encores elicited by the participants, who were mostly High School pupils. We are greatly indebted to Hiram Smith, our program announcer, who, as Happy Hooligan, helped with his witty remarks to enliven the evening. Our class colors, green and white, leant suitable decorations to the occasion. We still look forward with pleasure to our banquet and graduation, which events will end the social functions of the Class of 1906. Erna Widenmann. 28

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The proportion of child-employees is not so great in the other states as it is in South Carolina. Nevertheless, in the mills of a certain Georgia town, the percentage of child- operatives has been ascertained to be one-third of all the people employed. It is indeed pitiful to think of these wretched little beings toiling all day long with the exception of an half-hour at noon for rest. They rise long before day- break and continue their monotonous labor until, when the day’s work is done, they return to their miserable homes, thoroughly exhausted. More pitiful than the day work is the night labor of these children. Night after night they work and when morning dawns, they trudge bravely and cheerfully forth from the mills with their thin, pale, little faces deeply seamed with dirt. In Miss Van Vorst’s novel, “Amanda of the Mill,” a touching incident is related of one of these poor little waifs, scarcely six years old. She was working on the night shift, and one unfortunate night her hand was caught in the machinery. The member was so badly injured that it was necessary to amputate it. When questioned about her accident afterwards, she said, “Ih wuz suttenly right tyard, V Ih felled to sleep standin’ up.” This is perhaps merely a fictitious circumstance, nevertheless, in reality, like mis- fortunes have doubtless taken place. Many parents live upon the meagre sum obtained by their children, and many husbands upon that earned by both wives and children. It is said that it is a common sight to see a strong man sitting idly smoking upon the steps of his cabin while his wife and children are working in the mill for his living. Parents do not seem to understand the harm they do their children by letting them work thus early in life, shut in all day long, and not allowing them to enjoy the free, out-door life, which they were accustomed to par- take of in their old mountain homes. It is true that in former days, in their old country life, the children worked nearly as much as the adults. Nevertheless there is a vast difference between that work and this, and the out-door toil of the former cannot be compared to the ceaseless, unre- mitting, confining labor of the latter. ao