Little Spinner in Globe Cotton Mill, Augusta, Georgia. Overseer said she was regularly employed.

Title

Little Spinner in Globe Cotton Mill, Augusta, Georgia. Overseer said she was regularly employed.

Subject

Industrial labor

Photograph

Gender and labor

Class and labor

Archival framing

Institutional power

Representation and bias

Archival silence

Early 20th century

Progressive era

Augusta, Georgia

United States, South

Globe Cotton Mill

Description

This photograph, taken by Lewis Hine for the National Child Labor Committee in 1909, shows a young girl standing between two long rows of spinning machinery in the Globe Cotton Mill in Augusta, Georgia. She is wearing a work apron and boots, her clothes are dusty with cotton lint, and her posture is still as she faces the camera. The mill floor is littered with fibers, and the narrow aisle shows the confinement of the workspace. The original caption records the overseer's remark that she was "regularly employed," which presents her labor as routine within the operations of the mill.

Interpretation Note
Hine's photograph serves as both image and argument. At first glance, it simply shows a young girl at work in a factory, while the caption that says "regularly employed" uses institutional language to make child labor exploitation look routine and even respectable. By quoting the overseer's own words, Hine lets the justification speak for itself, exposing how employers normalize the practice of child labor, even as the photograph itself contradicts every syllable of that claim. This tension fits with Marlene Manoff's point that archival labels and descriptions affect how evidence is read, so the wording attached to the photograph carries as much weight as the photograph itself. It also echoes Saidiya Hartman's observation on the archive of marginalized people, as the girl's experiences and circumstances are absent, replaced by the overseer's authoritative framing. By placing the photograph and the caption together, Hine's photograph invites us to ask who gets to define labor, whose narratives are preserved (and whose are excluded), and how those decisions that were made long ago still influence the way future viewers understand women's and children's industrial labor in industrial settings.

Creator

Hine, Lewis Wickes, 1874–1940

Source

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

Publisher

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Date

1909-01

Contributor

National Child Labor Committee

Rights

No known restrictions on publication. For information, see the National Child Labor Committee collection page at https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/res.097.hine

Relation

LC-DIG-nclc-01641 (color digital file from b&w original print)

LC-DIG-nclc-05404 (b&w digital file from original glass negative)

LC-USZC4-4695 (color film copy transparency)

LC-USZ62-38564 (b&w film copy negative)

LC-USZ6-1223 (b&w film copy negative)

Library of Congress item record: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2018675041/

Format

1 photographic print

1 negative, glass, 5 by 7 inches

Language

English

Type

Still Image

Identifier

LC-H5-548
LOT 7479, v. 2, no. 0548

Coverage

Augusta, Georgia, United States

Alternative Title

Child cotton mill worker in Globe Cotton Mill, Augusta, Georgia

Extent

5 by 7 inches

Medium

Glass negative

Photographic print

Bibliographic Citation

Library of Congress, National Child Labor Committee Collection, LC-H5-548.

Spatial Coverage

Augusta, Georgia

Temporal Coverage

1909

Provenance

Transferred to the Library of Congress by the National Child Labor Committee.

Original Format

Photographic print

Glass negative

Physical Dimensions

5 by 7 inches