Child Labor Goes Up in Smoke
Eight-year-old boy and ten year old girl work among adults stripping tobacco leaves for cigar production. Their work room is crowded and dirty at the F. Delloiacono cigar store, where they pull stems out of tobacco leaves. The room is cramped; the width of their worktable leaves just enough room for chairs to be set up if they don’t sit too far away from the table.
Cigars and leaves pile high on the shelving running along the upper walls and the ledge at the top of the wainscoting. Their workspace is also their living and sleeping space and adjoins the store where the cigars are sold. Ironically, the site of the children’s labor is, today, a vape shop in Providence, Rhode Island.
