Fake Bible salesman

Lewis Hine, Addie Card, a shift in opinion, and what it makes me think today. Also, 7 other things worth your time.

It’s been a heck of weekend, so let’s go back in history once more, to try to figure out the present.

We’re a divided country, but we can agree on a few things. Take child labor, for example. I think we’re all against exploitative child labor, right? At least in an advanced, prosperous country like the United States.

Of course, this wasn’t always the case. There was a big shift in opinion in the early 1900s, thanks in part to people like Lewis Hine, a photographer working with the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC).

Hine spent years sneaking into factories, mines and mills, documenting the conditions in which children were working. Often posing as a Bible salesman, he took thousands of photos that put human faces on the issue.

Here’s Exhibit A — one of many: a cropped version of Hine’s 1910 photo of a girl, 12, working in a mill in Vermont. (Enable images if it’s not visible, or else check out the full version, here.)

The girl’s name was Addie Card. The expression on her face caught me …