Merely “Helping” a Sibling
In the image on the left, seven-year-old Fannie, one of nineteen children in her family, helps her sister working at the Elk textile mill in Fayetteville, Tennessee. Her sister (with back to photographer), said, “Yes, she he’ps me right smart. Not all day but all she can. Yes, she started with me at six this mornin.” Hine notes how mills are full of children who overseers claim “just happened in” or are just there to “help” siblings at their own jobs.
In another instance, shown in the image on the right, Hine saw a young girl, roughly eight years old, alongside her sister at the Newton Cotton Mills in North Carolina. The factory overseer said (as expected) that she was just there to bring her sister dinner. But Hine noticed that the girl was there at 9:30 in the morning and was doing the same work as her sister.
