Photographer Lewis W. Hine took this photograph of a group of boys at Pittston, Pennsylvania on a cold Sunday in January 1911. Hines was working on behalf of the National Child Labor Committee investigating the mining industry and its use of underage workers.

Labor laws existed limiting the employment of children as mineworkers at the time, but were easily avoided by both mine management and families of the children employed at the mines. The youngest boys were most often employed as “breaker boys,” separating coal from rock and slate outside the mines.

Hine described the boys in this photograph and their attitudes toward this out-of-town photographer:

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These are all breaker-boys. They were very suspicious of my motives.

Sam Bellom (boy on left end of photo), 58 Pine Street. Been working in breaker #9 for two years, he says. He says, also, that he is 14 years old, but does not appear to be?

Sam Topent (next to Bellom), 52 Pine Street. Been working at Ewen Breaker two years. Said, ‘I’m fourteen years, an’ if you don’ believe me, I kin show you de proofs.’ (They were all suspicious.) This boy had told the School Principal the other day that he was 13 years old, which may be too high.

James Ritz (in middle), 28 Pine Street. Been working one year at Ewen Breaker. Said, ‘14 years old,’ but this is unbelievable.

Mikey Captan (small boy on James’ left) 45 Pine St. Been working one year at Ewen Breaker, said he was 12 years old, but doesn’t appear to be that.

Tony Captan (right end of photo), 45 Pine St. Been working in Ewen Breaker one year.

I found these boys and many others, working at Ewen Breaker…

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Photographs: Library of Congress

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Read more about breaker boys in the Coal Region

“Children of the Coal Shadow” – A haunting report about the children of the Coal Region from 1903

“The Breaker Boy” – A poem from 1897 about the child laborers of the Coal Region

A remembrance of a boyhood in Schuylkill County during the Civil War

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