A Group of Child Laborers Going in for a 12-Hour Night Shift at a Mil in North Carolina, 1908

In this haunting flashlight photograph taken in 1908, children are seen heading to their night shift at the Whitnel Cotton Mills in North Carolina. It’s 6 PM on a cold, dark December evening. Their shift will last a grueling 12 hours—through the night—until 6 AM the next morning.

These young workers, some barely more than children, were part of the labor force that powered America’s industrial boom. Lewis Wickes Hine, a pioneering social reform photographer, used images like this to expose the harsh realities of child labor and advocate for change. His powerful documentation played a crucial role in sparking labor reforms that eventually led to child labor laws across the United States.

At that time, American law-makers weren’t completely apathetic towards this situation, and many U.S. states had already passed laws that regulated the employment of children in industrial settings. Most companies however chose to ignore these laws. It wasn’t an uncommon notion that hiring these children would help out the poorer families in the state.

While Lewis Hine was documenting these child laborers, many employers passed them off as at least 16 years old. In reality, children as young as eight were already hired for different jobs.

Mr. Hine studied sociology and later on became a teacher. He encouraged his students to use photography as a tool for their education. Later on, he realized that photojournalism was his true calling.

He first documented the arrival of immigrants in Ellis Island in 1904. He continued his photography by following these immigrants into their crowded tenements. It wouldn’t be long after starting on this path that his work led him to the working conditions of the poor, including children.

His groundbreaking work on child labor began in 1908 at the invitation of the National Child Labor Committee. They believed that child labor would only provide so much income for the families in the short run and wouldn’t lead them out of poverty in the future. Instead, a proper education was the true way for improving the lives of the children.

Mr. Hine set out to different factories, mines, and plants in many states to document these child workers. It is truly a testament to his skill and determination that he was able to capture so many moving images at the risk of his own life; the presence of a photographer with the aim of exposing these exploited children would have been an unwelcome prospect for these companies, to say the least.

Hine’s photographs put hundreds of faces to the names of these child laborers that the middle and upper classes had only heard about in passing. His invaluable work paid off as the NCLC successfully lobbied for federal laws to protect the children, although it would be many years before true change would come. 

Today, Lewis Hine is remembered for helping change the working conditions of everyone across America through his unflinching photographs. Then NCLC honors his name through the Lewis Hine Awards which recognizes those who have helped children and the youth.

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60 Vintage Photographs Document Tobacco Bag Stringing Work in North Carolina and Virginia in 1939

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, families throughout the tobacco-growing regions of North Carolina and Virginia earned much-needed income by sewing drawstrings into cotton tobacco bags. Long forgotten today, tobacco bag stringing was a common activity in many communities. Because the labor was not physically demanding and could be done at home, the work attracted many women, children, and others who needed money to supplement their farm incomes, or who could not find work in nearby factories and mills.

Tobacco bags were used to hold loose tobacco, which smokers used in pipes or to roll their own cigarettes. The bags were usually made of cotton or muslin cloth and measured about four by three inches. They were sewn down the length of two sides, with an opening left at the top. Tobacco bag stringers would thread the string into both sides, enabling the smoker to pull on the ends to close the bags. Experienced stringers were remarkably efficient. One woman from West Durham, North Carolina remembered working only in her spare time and still stringing as many as a thousand bags a day, for which she earned about fifty cents.

Many of the bag stringers received work through a “bag agent,” who was employed directly by the manufacturer. The agent was often a local businessman or county government official who was well known throughout the community. Distributing tobacco bags became an important responsibility when demand for work outpaced the number of bags available. A bag agent in Leaksville, North Carolina in 1939 described the need for work in his community:

“The mills here have been running short time for several years now. And I believe less than one half of the people normally employed are now at work. Boiled down this means there probably is one in each household partly employed [as a tobacco bag stringer]. So every day I have hundreds of requests for bags above that I am able to provide. They come at me from every angle, telephone, doorbell and since my business is in my residence, they'll even go around the house and come in the back door just to tell me how needy they are, and ask me to please get them some bags to string to help out in the little they now receive.”

In 1939, three companies produced the bulk of the tobacco bags used in the United States. Of these, only one—the Golden Belt Manufacturing Company, a subsidiary of American Tobacco in Durham, North Carolina—had come up with a way to insert drawstrings mechanically. The other two companies—the Millhiser Bag Company in Richmond, Virginia and the Chase Bag Company in Reidsville, North Carolina—had to rely on human labor to string the bags. This was not a small business: the three companies combined to produce a billion tobacco bags a year.

Although many Americans showed a clear preference for the more convenient machine-rolled cigarettes, loose tobacco was still much cheaper and saw its sales jump in times of economic hardship. During the Great Depression, a bag of loose tobacco, from which about thirty cigarettes could be rolled, sold for ten cents, while packs of twenty machine-rolled cigarettes cost fifteen cents.

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Vintage Portraits of Lincoln County High School Couples in Their Prom Outfits in 1976

The 1970s formal dress, party dress or prom dress went through several changes during the decade. At first, the short shift cocktail party dress or according pleated swing dress continued its trend from the ’60s.

The new dress style was the long empire waist maxi dresses made of flowing chiffon, florals or bold hippie prints topped with bat sleeves or an oversized sheer cape. These morphed into the granny dress or peasant dress, popular as 1970s prom dresses, with a throwback style to the turn of the century late Victorian fashion. Lace insets, ruffle trim, and long bell sleeves embellished these long 1970s party dresses.

At the very end of the 1970s came the era of slinky disco dressed inspired by Gracian draping and simple ballet dance skirts. Metallic colors in liquid fabrics made them sparkle like a disco ball.

Prom fashion in the 1970s was diverse, groovy, and fresh. These lovely photos from LLF archives2 show portraits of high school couples in Lincoln County, North Carolina, in their prom outfits in 1976.

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Studio Portrait Photos of North Carolina Ladies in the Early 20th Century

These amazing photos from the State Archives of North Carolina were attributed to the Tyree and Wharton-Tyree Studios that operated for many years in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina.

North Carolina ladies in the early 20th century

Donated in the mid-1960s by J. C. Knowles, a local Raleigh area antiques dealer and estate sale manager. Mr. Knowles obtained the negatives from a Mr. Leavister. While purchasing a lamp from Leavister, who was in the business of salvaging furnishings and architectural details from demolished homes in downtown Raleigh, Knowles saw several boxes of old glass negatives and asked Leavister what he was going to do with them. He answered that he had gotten them on one of his demolition sites and said Knowles could have them if he wanted them. Knowles said he wanted them and took them with him when he bought the lamp.

After he had the negatives for a while, he decided to give them to the Museum of History. The collection was eventually transferred to the State Archives.

Bridal portrait of unidentified young woman, circa 1905-1910

Full-length portrait of unidentified woman in gown, circa 1905-1910

Full-length portrait of unidentified woman in gown, circa 1905-1910

Full-length portrait of unidentified woman in gown, circa 1905-1910

Portrait of unidentified bride, circa 1905-1910

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30 Fascinating Photos Capture Street Scenes of Raleigh, North Carolina in the 1970s

Raleigh is the capital of the state of North Carolina and the seat of Wake County in the United States. It is the second-most populous city in North Carolina, tenth-most populous city in the Southeast, 41st-most populous city in the U.S., and the largest city of the Research Triangle metro area.

Raleigh is known as the “City of Oaks” for its many oak trees, which line the streets in the heart of the city. The city covers a land area of 147.6 square miles (382 km2). It is one of the fastest-growing cities in the country.

By the early 21st century, Raleigh had become one of the fastest-growing communities in the United States. These fascinating photos from State Archives of North Carolina that captured street scenes of Raleigh about 1974.

100 Fayetteville Street looking west through the block to Salisbury Street , Raleigh, looking south. Ambassador Theater on left, circa 1974

100 block of Fayetteville Street, Raleigh, looking south. Ambassador Theater on left, circa 1974

134 Fayetteville Street, Raleigh, circa 1974

208 South Wilmington Street, Raleigh, circa 1974

333 Fayetteville Street, BB&T Building, Raleigh, circa 1974

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Vintage Photos Show Inside the Camel Cigarette Factory of North Carolina in 1948

In 1913, Richard Joshua “R. J.” Reynolds, founder of the company that still bears his name, innovated the packaged cigarette. He worked to develop a more appealing flavor, creating the Camel cigarette, which he so named because it used Turkish tobacco in imitation of then-fashionable Egyptian cigarettes. Reynolds priced them below competitors, and within a year, he had sold 425 million packs.

Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the city where R. J. Reynolds was founded, is nicknamed “Camel City” because of the brand’s popularity.

These vintage photos from State Archives of North Carolina are scenes from the Camel cigarette factory, R. J. Reynolds, in Winston Salem, North Carolina. Women making and packing cigarettes on June 20, 1948. Published in The News & Observer newspaper on December 11, 1949.

For details about these photos and their historical context, please see Teresa Leonard’s ‘Past Times’ article in the N&O.

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John G. Zimmerman: American in Black and White

In 1952, renowned American photographer John G. Zimmerman moved to Atlanta. During his time there he shot a series of noteworthy assignments for Ebony depicting the lives of African Americans in the Midwest and the Jim Crow south. These photographs are a lesser-known yet notable part of Zimmerman’s early work. The subject matter ranges from the first all black supermarket in Detroit, boxing legend Joe Louis, to sharecropper Matt Ingram’s quest for justice.

The Center for Photographic Art states: “the work of John G. Zimmerman, one of the 20th century’s most wide-ranging and innovative photojournalists, helped generate a golden age in magazine photography. Zimmerman grew up in Torrance, California, developing and printing film in the family kitchen and darkroom. A three-year high school photography program with Hollywood cinematographer Clarence A. Bach prepared him for his first job as a staffer at Time magazine. Following that assignment he spent several years freelancing for Life and Ebony magazines, creating groundbreaking images of the lives of African Americans in the Midwest, and in the deeply segregated, pre-Civil Rights south.”

Take a look at Zimmerman’s work in the 1950s through 18 black and white photographs below:

Curtis Phillips, winner of the Shoe Shine Contest, Wilson, North Carolina, 1952.

Department store, 1953.

Jumping rope, Tennesse, 1953.

Swimming hole, Tennessee, 1953.

Matt Ingram, wife Linward and their children pray before dinner, Yanceyville, North Carolina, 1953.

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February 1, 1960: Four Black College Students Start the Greensboro Sit-ins

At 4:30 in the afternoon on February 1, 1960, four black college students — Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, David Richmond and Ezell Blair Jr. — sat down at a whites-only lunch counter at an F.W. Woolworth’s in Greensboro, N.C., and politely asked for service. They weren’t served. They nevertheless stayed there until the store closed that evening.

Earlier, the four freshmen, who were enrolled at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, had purchased toothpaste and various school supplies. One of them told UPI: “We believe, since we buy books and papers in the other part of the store, we should get served in this part.”

Clarence L. Harris, the store’s manager, said, “They can just sit there. It’s nothing to me.” But when a larger group of students returned the next day, wire services picked up the story. Civil rights groups began to spread the effort to other college campuses. In the next two weeks, students in 11 cities held lunch counter sit-ins. Additional students joined them over the succeeding weeks and months as sit-in protests spread from North Carolina to other Southern states.

By August 1961, the sit-ins had involved more than 70,000 interracial participants and generated some 3,000 arrests. They continued until the 1964 Civil Rights Act outlawed segregation at lunch counters and other public facilities such as movie theaters.

On July 25, 1960, after sustaining nearly $200,000 in losses ($1.8 million today), store manager Harris asked three black employees to change out of their work clothes and to order a meal at the counter. They were the first African-Americans to be served at the Greensboro Woolworth lunch counter. Most of the chain’s stores in the South were soon desegregated, though in some Tennessee cities, notably Nashville and Jackson, Woolworth’s continued to be segregated until 1965, despite multiple protests.

The Greensboro Four: (left to right) David Richmond, Franklin McCain, Ezell A. Blair, Jr., and Joseph McNeil.

While the Greensboro sit-in proved to be the most influential and significant sit-in of the civil rights movement, it was not the first. In August 1939, black attorney Samuel Wilbert Tucker organized a sit-in at the then-segregated Alexandria, Va., library. In 1942, the Congress of Racial Equality sponsored sit-ins in Chicago, as they did in St. Louis in 1949 and Baltimore in 1952. Also, a 1958 sit-in in Wichita, Kan., successfully ended segregation at every Dockum Drug Store in the state.

(via Politico)

Incredible Behind the Scenes Photos of Civil Rights Activists Training to Endure the Harassment and Violence They Would Face

In 1960, college student activists gathered at Shaw University in Raleigh, NC, and organized the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to fight for civil rights.

SNCC played an important role in civil rights history and was fundamental to the organizing of sit-ins, freedom rides and other forms of direct-action protest. To prepare for the type of hatred and violence they would encounter, students practiced “passive resistance training.” While SNCC was non-violent, the type of training the students had to do included everything from verbal abuse and hair pulling, to spiting and getting aggressively physical. These training sessions, briefly depicted in a scene in The Butler, were difficult and often included white members of the group having to enact the racism the group was fighting.

These photos provide a rare glimpse into the emotional, physical, and psychological work activists did in order to prepare for their non-violent resistance. They were taken by the legendary photographers James Karales and Eve Arnold. These photos have been published with permission from their respective estates.

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Pictures of Clubs at North Carolina Women's Colleges in the Early 20th Century

Not all clubs at women's colleges in North Carolina were highly formal organizations. Many were formed to connect students with similar interests, to connect students from the same state, or purely in pursuit of fun.

How would you like to have been a member of the Bandanna Gang at Salem College in 1907? Or the Blue Ridge Boomers at Baptist Female Seminary (now Meredith College) in 1904?

Take a look at these photos of clubs at North Carolina women's colleges in the early 20th century from North Carolina Digital Heritage Center, and make your choice.

Dramatic Club, Baptist Female University, 1904

Blue Ridge Boomers, Baptist Female University, 1904

Chafing Dish Club, Baptist Female University, 1904

Long Bones Club, Baptist Female University, 1904

Mozart Club, Baptist Female University, 1904

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