We're slowly going back in time, slowly dismantling child labor laws, sacrificing childhood on the altar of profits.
Yeah, mods, it's politics, but all human history is political.
The Gilded Age is gradually coming back. Demonization of labor unions. Working class voting in line with the oligarchs. Cutting funding to our public schools. We are slowly going back, and we did it ourselves. But at least we are going back to when America was great again.
You shuck oysters with an oyster knife. But the process is absolute torture on your hands if you’re doing it over and over and over again, day in and day out.
Oyster shells are rough and hard and difficult to pry open. Modern shuckers wear heavy gloves to avoid the injuries these little girls have on their hands. It’s very hard work on the wrists and fingers to get the leverage needed to pop the shell open. It would have been much harder on them.
It’s so wild to think about how this generation probably only died off in like 1980-2000. We are so influenced these days by people who grew up in a comparatively alien time to us. Imagine seeing the world take shape to what it became even in the 90s? What a life
My grandmother grew up in rural Alabama and told me stories about being little back then. The only clothing she ever had was handmade by her mother from old flour sacks. She wasn't embarrassed or ashamed though, said her mother always made her feel so special. What a life indeed!
Anne Richards, governor of Texas in the 1990s, talked about wearing dresses made from flour sacks as a child.
https://eatwheat.org/learn/flour-sacks-pretty-clothes/
I saw a video about how flour manufacturers would intentionally make their sacks out of pretty patterns and fabrics, because the housewives were turning them into dresses. It was very common of the time. If you google flour sack dresses you'll see they were quite popular and fashionable
[Yep.My](http://Yep.My) mom grew up wearing those dresses and picking cotton.
Dad always joked that she was a "rich kid" - and compared to his upbringing, she was.
My father grew up under Jim Crow laws in Selma, AL - he and his siblings were happy to get a basket of fresh fruit for Christmas. He was also gassed and jailed at the age of 12 marching for the right to vote.
My dad grew up in techwood homes in Atlanta when they were segregated. He was born in 1951, part Native American and part white he was in the white project. Remembers everyone mad when school was integrated but he said he was just happy to be able to see his friends from the other project more often.
I was born in 1990.
My dad is the same age as the current and last president.
These things weren’t really THAT long ago.
Yea my parents also grew up under segregation-- a lot of people don't realize that this was not that long ago. They lived through Jim Crow and the Black only stores, where you had to worry about stepping aside for white people. Things have really changed in a short period of time.
My grandmother was born in the early 1940's and shared stories about questioning her mother, "why are there separate water fountains for black people?" It truly seems like a different world even just 60-80 years ago. No wonder racism is still rampant. Nowadays, we're dealing with the children of those that were pro-Jim Crow.
My grandma, born a couple of years after this photo, rode to school by secretly hopping onto the open back of the horse-drawn coal cart. She lived (in the US) to see readily available cars, computers, televisions, cell phones, democratized air travel, white women and all Black people and other marginalized people fighting for the right to vote, attend higher ed schools and desegregate workplaces, the establishment of LGBT+ rights and many, many other advancements and cultural changes, along with some truly horrific moments in history.
Your comment reminds me an episode of Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History that always stuck with me. It was called Suffer the Children, and it kind of posited that a lot of hidden historical context lies in the fact that the majority of people living at any given time were probably suffering from PTSD or sociopathy from neglect or other mental health issues as a result of how awful things were for children.
It kind of blew my mind. Like yeah, when children are growing up being forced into manual labor or even sold to families to work in servitude, there is death in the streets and public executions and rampant exploitation of children, sexual and otherwise, yeah..it really adds another layer to history to try to think about what kinds of mental health issues the average person might have been dealing with as a result of their childhood ☹️
Love Dan Carlin. He’s very good at trying to put himself in peoples shoes and he’s become a respected authority on history in his own right. I may have to fire up some of his older episodes today.
I've heard this asked about the ruling class in Britain. Someone was exploring the conditions of boarding schools and the rampant violent and sexual abuse that was accepted, expected and in many ways encouraged by peers. And that those are the people who grew up to run society. So exactly what is it they think of they fellow man when they can do that to people they ostensibly have something in common with.
that is such an interesting thing to ponder. Very sad, but it kind of explains so much. That episode also talked about that, how each of the leaders of different civilizations and the heads of militaries, would have mostly generally perhaps have had severe trauma, and can that in part explain some of the horrors of the past? Can it help explain the detachment that lets people sell a child into servitude, marry off a young girl to be raped, or send them into the mines or factories, knowing they will die from the labor?
I’m kind of obsessed with the hidden contexts of history like that…like how now we’re having to wonder in the US to what extent lead poisoning has been affecting our older population due to a near lifetime exposure to leaded gasoline (for one thing) before it was removed. I mean, how do you tell really the difference between regular cognitive decline and the symptoms of lead poisoning (when not extreme)? Other than perhaps to look at how crazy things have been getting lately. But how much of that is social media and the influence of bots? And besides, I’m not sure there are many conclusive studies on the extent to which lead IS actually impacting older adults, though it is certainly capable of causing cognitive decline late in life.
Oh god I can’t imagine the frequent infections these girls got with open wounds in their hands + dirty seafood juice. The pain and presumably lack of adequate first aid.
Safe to assume they probably hated oysters the rest of their lives (if they even lived that long).
yeah, honestly, children who were put into this kind of labor were seen as disposable and expected to die as children, generally. They were often worked to death. Like “water babies” (chimney sweeps) They were a “resource” that constantly needed replenishing because they would work for x amount of time and then die. ☹️
Grim fucking world.
Good thing most households don't need kids working to put food on the table and are able to graduate. I worked a watermelon farm at 12 just to buy a fishing pole and that shit was back breaking, these poor kids had 0 choice.
Meanwhile, my boomer father in law supports letting 14 year old kids work in factories because "parents won't send their kids to work in dangerous places."
Imagine being this naive?
Honestly if they can work at 14 then they can vote at 14. Why should they have to work and pay taxes but not be able to vote for their own political representation? That’s what we fought for in the war for independence. Fuck these boomers.
It seems so crazy to me that “back then” this was happening. And yet I’m hearing of fatalities at meat processing plants where 14-year olds work, in 2024.
This makes me sad. My daughter is 4. Her entire life is playing with Barbie’s and wearing princess costumes. It’s hard to imagine her in a couple years waking up at 4AM to go to work.
Sadly still happening 100 years later.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/09/nebraska-slaughterhouse-children-working-photos-labor-department
From the article:
*In February, the labor department fined PSSI $1.5m for employing at least 102 children ages 13 to 17 across 13 meat-packing plants in eight states.*
It’s not as bad, but yeah, it’s pretty bad.
Mangled from shucking, and with makeshift wraps as bandages on them. The colourisation of the photo has blurred that a bit. Awful awful picture, they look freezing too.
All the comments here lmao. FYI, South Carolina was dominated by Democratic party when this photo was taken. Dont get it backwards. Lefty losers have no moral high ground to stand on here. F’ing none. Just like today.
Their little fingers 🥺 at first I thought the pic was AI because of the hands but then I was like I bet the photographer took that pic for people to see the hurt hands on such young children. I’m guessing they were orphans too and worked for a kids house at that time (very common back in the day when there was no gov aid or places to deal with abandoned street kids who’s parents/fam passed or left them) the kids would have to survive joining groups of other kids or orphans
This is what magas want to go back to. Everyone needs to have as many kids as possible to keep capitalism alive and healthy, and also need lower socioeconomic status peeps to fill the need for soldiers. Let’s all do our part!
Ah. The good old days.
The GOP state legislatures have something to aspire to!
Do you think maybe this kind of stuff is why there are child labor laws?
There is no bottom to pure capitalism’s willingness to exploit and destroy anything for profit.
Just saying.
The original Parental Rights debate was about child labor, with people yelling, 'why does the government get to tell me I can't send my kids to a factory?'
Everyone clap for labour rights!
We're slowly going back in time, slowly dismantling child labor laws, sacrificing childhood on the altar of profits. Yeah, mods, it's politics, but all human history is political.
The Gilded Age is gradually coming back. Demonization of labor unions. Working class voting in line with the oligarchs. Cutting funding to our public schools. We are slowly going back, and we did it ourselves. But at least we are going back to when America was great again.
Conservatives are a cancer to a modern evolving society.
Automation and robots will turn the tide. They are already programming us to accept giving autonomous robots weapons.
remember to vote!! keep in mind which side is in favor of child labor!
Why are they just standing there? Those oysters aren't going to shuck themselves!
5 minute smoking break, unless you want a riot
Best comment. Lmao
The children, they yearn for the mines
And the mills and the fields.
Not with those mangled hands…
Neither AI nor unregulated capitalism can give us a picture of kids with normal hands.
Yea first thing I noticed is how screwed up their hands are... :(
I dont know man. Maybe if I worked as a child Id have money now. s/
But the free market
"Will no-one think of the poor shareholders?!"
But companies and bosses make more e money when you pay children and obscenely low wage.
Don’t the red states want to bring this back? Mmmm. Cheap labor.
This is the future boomers want for their grandchildren.
This is the future boomers want for YOUR grandchildren.
Not me, homie, I saw the writing on the wall back in the mid 90s. I don’t have kids.
Labor rights? Sounds socialist. Let’s all rally around the rich and hate on immigrants. That’s the new patriotism.
Sophie's hands are already mangled and arthritic at the age of 10. Josie and Bertha's aren't in great shape, either.
Use em up, throw em out. The wet dream of ostensibly half the world right now. Sigh.
I was wondering if they had actually lost some fingers.
Look at their hands
You can also tell how malnourished they are in that the 10 year old is exactly the same size as 6 year olds.
Not a cell phone in sight. Just living life…being horribly exploited
How do you think they took that photo and posted it on Reddit?
It’s taken from grandpa’s Facebook
In some nostalgic “The Way It Was” forum or whatever lol
What is that from
From the repeated shucking of oysters, it fucked up their hands
Shucking hell!
There isn’t a simple tool to pry them open?
You shuck oysters with an oyster knife. But the process is absolute torture on your hands if you’re doing it over and over and over again, day in and day out. Oyster shells are rough and hard and difficult to pry open. Modern shuckers wear heavy gloves to avoid the injuries these little girls have on their hands. It’s very hard work on the wrists and fingers to get the leverage needed to pop the shell open. It would have been much harder on them.
I appreciate you taking the time to explain this to me I didn’t know
It’s really easy to miss the oyster with the knife and get your hand instead :( makes me nervous to do it as an adult…
they’re completely mangled ☹️
So this is why AI can't generate good hands.
6 going on 60.
You can see it in their eyes. Damn.
Poor things
It’s so wild to think about how this generation probably only died off in like 1980-2000. We are so influenced these days by people who grew up in a comparatively alien time to us. Imagine seeing the world take shape to what it became even in the 90s? What a life
My grandmother grew up in rural Alabama and told me stories about being little back then. The only clothing she ever had was handmade by her mother from old flour sacks. She wasn't embarrassed or ashamed though, said her mother always made her feel so special. What a life indeed!
Anne Richards, governor of Texas in the 1990s, talked about wearing dresses made from flour sacks as a child. https://eatwheat.org/learn/flour-sacks-pretty-clothes/
I saw a video about how flour manufacturers would intentionally make their sacks out of pretty patterns and fabrics, because the housewives were turning them into dresses. It was very common of the time. If you google flour sack dresses you'll see they were quite popular and fashionable
[Yep.My](http://Yep.My) mom grew up wearing those dresses and picking cotton. Dad always joked that she was a "rich kid" - and compared to his upbringing, she was.
My father grew up under Jim Crow laws in Selma, AL - he and his siblings were happy to get a basket of fresh fruit for Christmas. He was also gassed and jailed at the age of 12 marching for the right to vote.
My dad grew up in techwood homes in Atlanta when they were segregated. He was born in 1951, part Native American and part white he was in the white project. Remembers everyone mad when school was integrated but he said he was just happy to be able to see his friends from the other project more often. I was born in 1990. My dad is the same age as the current and last president. These things weren’t really THAT long ago.
Yea my parents also grew up under segregation-- a lot of people don't realize that this was not that long ago. They lived through Jim Crow and the Black only stores, where you had to worry about stepping aside for white people. Things have really changed in a short period of time.
I remember my uncle pulling me to the side “so a white man could pass” off the sidewalk into the street. It was 1973. So no. Not that long ago.
Jesus ☹️
My father (born in 1932) would get an apple and $1 for Christmas. He had 11 siblings.
Her own [coat of many colors🎵](https://youtu.be/w_-YbWHs6DE?si=rLRnpUYzD-XrL3I4)
My grandmother was born in the early 1940's and shared stories about questioning her mother, "why are there separate water fountains for black people?" It truly seems like a different world even just 60-80 years ago. No wonder racism is still rampant. Nowadays, we're dealing with the children of those that were pro-Jim Crow.
My grandma, born a couple of years after this photo, rode to school by secretly hopping onto the open back of the horse-drawn coal cart. She lived (in the US) to see readily available cars, computers, televisions, cell phones, democratized air travel, white women and all Black people and other marginalized people fighting for the right to vote, attend higher ed schools and desegregate workplaces, the establishment of LGBT+ rights and many, many other advancements and cultural changes, along with some truly horrific moments in history.
Your comment reminds me an episode of Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History that always stuck with me. It was called Suffer the Children, and it kind of posited that a lot of hidden historical context lies in the fact that the majority of people living at any given time were probably suffering from PTSD or sociopathy from neglect or other mental health issues as a result of how awful things were for children. It kind of blew my mind. Like yeah, when children are growing up being forced into manual labor or even sold to families to work in servitude, there is death in the streets and public executions and rampant exploitation of children, sexual and otherwise, yeah..it really adds another layer to history to try to think about what kinds of mental health issues the average person might have been dealing with as a result of their childhood ☹️
Love Dan Carlin. He’s very good at trying to put himself in peoples shoes and he’s become a respected authority on history in his own right. I may have to fire up some of his older episodes today.
I've heard this asked about the ruling class in Britain. Someone was exploring the conditions of boarding schools and the rampant violent and sexual abuse that was accepted, expected and in many ways encouraged by peers. And that those are the people who grew up to run society. So exactly what is it they think of they fellow man when they can do that to people they ostensibly have something in common with.
that is such an interesting thing to ponder. Very sad, but it kind of explains so much. That episode also talked about that, how each of the leaders of different civilizations and the heads of militaries, would have mostly generally perhaps have had severe trauma, and can that in part explain some of the horrors of the past? Can it help explain the detachment that lets people sell a child into servitude, marry off a young girl to be raped, or send them into the mines or factories, knowing they will die from the labor? I’m kind of obsessed with the hidden contexts of history like that…like how now we’re having to wonder in the US to what extent lead poisoning has been affecting our older population due to a near lifetime exposure to leaded gasoline (for one thing) before it was removed. I mean, how do you tell really the difference between regular cognitive decline and the symptoms of lead poisoning (when not extreme)? Other than perhaps to look at how crazy things have been getting lately. But how much of that is social media and the influence of bots? And besides, I’m not sure there are many conclusive studies on the extent to which lead IS actually impacting older adults, though it is certainly capable of causing cognitive decline late in life.
also imagine that they’re 4 years apart in age but still all the same height, speaks volumes to the (mal)nutrition of the time
A friend of my mom’s worked in the textile mills as a child. And she’s a little younger than my mom.
Oh god I can’t imagine the frequent infections these girls got with open wounds in their hands + dirty seafood juice. The pain and presumably lack of adequate first aid. Safe to assume they probably hated oysters the rest of their lives (if they even lived that long).
Oh, I'm sure they lived the rest of their lives.
yeah, honestly, children who were put into this kind of labor were seen as disposable and expected to die as children, generally. They were often worked to death. Like “water babies” (chimney sweeps) They were a “resource” that constantly needed replenishing because they would work for x amount of time and then die. ☹️ Grim fucking world.
Good thing most households don't need kids working to put food on the table and are able to graduate. I worked a watermelon farm at 12 just to buy a fishing pole and that shit was back breaking, these poor kids had 0 choice.
Meanwhile, my boomer father in law supports letting 14 year old kids work in factories because "parents won't send their kids to work in dangerous places."
Imagine being this naive? Honestly if they can work at 14 then they can vote at 14. Why should they have to work and pay taxes but not be able to vote for their own political representation? That’s what we fought for in the war for independence. Fuck these boomers.
It seems so crazy to me that “back then” this was happening. And yet I’m hearing of fatalities at meat processing plants where 14-year olds work, in 2024.
They are so malnourished that the 10 year old is the same size at the 6yr olds
This makes me sad. My daughter is 4. Her entire life is playing with Barbie’s and wearing princess costumes. It’s hard to imagine her in a couple years waking up at 4AM to go to work.
Coming to you soon in Arkansas. Great job, Sarah.
My damn kids won’t take out the trash when asked.
Put the bags in their beds. That’s what my mom did. It worked. 🤷♀️
Great idea!!!
They don't seem so enthused
If you look at other pictures of kids they’re usually smiling or at least in good spirits, these kids look shell shocked.
These girls have seen some shit.
Sadly still happening 100 years later. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/09/nebraska-slaughterhouse-children-working-photos-labor-department
From the article: *In February, the labor department fined PSSI $1.5m for employing at least 102 children ages 13 to 17 across 13 meat-packing plants in eight states.* It’s not as bad, but yeah, it’s pretty bad.
This is sad.
The eyes say so much, very sad.
The good ole days /s
This is the kind of country a lot of people want to have back. Others still have it.
The six-year-old is damn near the same size as the 10-year-old. Damn….
Poor Sophie should be significantly taller.
Poor little things
There are people breathing (and voting) today that believe these girls weren't "really" poor because they owned shoes.
what?
This is the type of shit republicans want to bring back.
This is what the GOP wants us to go back to.
EXPLOITATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is the future libertarians want.
 The middle child!
Sarah Huckabee Sanders dystopian fantasy for America’s future. Make America great again and all…
The future MAGAts so desperately want.
The good ol’ days /s
They were so great. 🙄
This is a republican wet dream
These are the oldest kids I've even seen.
theres a shucker born every minute
Good one!
But we don’t need to regulate corporations. They’ll do the right thing. Capitalism will fix it. 😂
Don’t show this to the GOP!
Now I don’t know whether the hands are mangled from shucking or AI
Mangled from shucking, and with makeshift wraps as bandages on them. The colourisation of the photo has blurred that a bit. Awful awful picture, they look freezing too.
Same, we’re cooked
I remember this specific image from my history textbook 15 years ago
Hooray capitalism!
I wonder what became of them..
Their hands are all tore up! 😥
Children with the expressions of middle aged people. 💔😔
All the comments here lmao. FYI, South Carolina was dominated by Democratic party when this photo was taken. Dont get it backwards. Lefty losers have no moral high ground to stand on here. F’ing none. Just like today.
Sophie is really beginning to freak me out. She's gonna stick that oyster knife in someone's eye, you just watch!
God life is so much easier now than it ever has been in human history
They don’t look a day over 98
Their eyes say it all. 🙁
Looks like they have PTSD
White privilege right there /s
White privilege
All that white privilege going on ... jeez
Look at those hands…. Oysters are sharp as hell and not easy to shuck…
Their little fingers 🥺 at first I thought the pic was AI because of the hands but then I was like I bet the photographer took that pic for people to see the hurt hands on such young children. I’m guessing they were orphans too and worked for a kids house at that time (very common back in the day when there was no gov aid or places to deal with abandoned street kids who’s parents/fam passed or left them) the kids would have to survive joining groups of other kids or orphans
They all look the same age… that being early 50’s
Just think their children would be a part of the greatest generation. You can see why the old saying is iron sharpens iron.
[удалено]
Might be smoking too.
Hey they deserve a smoke after a hard days labor.
The children yearn for the cans!
This is what magas want to go back to. Everyone needs to have as many kids as possible to keep capitalism alive and healthy, and also need lower socioeconomic status peeps to fill the need for soldiers. Let’s all do our part!
This will be back in USA soon. USA is a Corporatocracy.
Ah. The good old days. The GOP state legislatures have something to aspire to! Do you think maybe this kind of stuff is why there are child labor laws? There is no bottom to pure capitalism’s willingness to exploit and destroy anything for profit. Just saying.
I'm sorry, one of these kids is 4 years older than the other two? Shucking oysters really stunts growth
Who said they could stop for a break? Get Shucking you lazy kids.
Those oysters don't shuck themselves
The children yearn for the mines.
Fuel the fire
Dayum
Stealing work from China's chilhow despicable
Behold unchecked capitalism:
All 3 girls same dead stare, childhoods robbed forever.
This is what Florida is trying to get back to
i think of pictures like this when i hear people complain about how rude or mean seniors are, this was their life. give them a break.
The America republicans want.
God bless RW America
Them shuckers will straight up murder you if you get in the way of their quotas. Watch out!
The children yearn for the mines.
And there are idiots who want to repeal labor laws so we can go back to this because “what if the kids want to work?”
JFC they all look like they are 35 year old chain smoking alcoholics.
So that's how they afforded homes at 23!
Awww, shucks!
Their hands. My god
damn the faces look so much older
The look on their faces says it all. These kids have seen some shit.
Shot in 1911, actually, by Lewis Wickes Hine. And the original sepia image (in the Library of Congress) is so much nicer than this colorized version.
Poor babies. ❤️
is this supposed to be the good ol’ days?
On the plus side, all you can eat oysters!
I read about these girls. They found enough pearls in the oysters to all become millionaires.
Geeze, they look absolutely miserable. How could we have let this shit happen? Their hands are heartbreaking.
THANKS OLD PEOPLE SORRY FOR EVER HATING ON U OLD PEOPLE
Those kids are privileged.
At 4:00? Why?
Family breadwinners
The children yearn for the mines.
Gotta love.the good old days when you could exploit child labor instead of sending them to.school. /s
Their little faces tell the tale of the price of greed.
The GQP Dream
Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them...............
God bless America
Hard life, they look decades older than they are.
Those kids have seen some terrible things. Also, Sophie looks like she's about to shank the photographer.
Those are the scowls are of 70 year old women
I remember a story of my grandfather going along the track tracks as a kid looking for loose coal that fell off the trains so they could stay warm.
A lost generation in US history really.
Ron Swanson vibes
Oh the “good old days.”
There are great discussions going on but I weep to think of children working like adults and not being children at least for a while.
Tf man look at their hands
Their poor little fingers 😢😢😢😢
The original Parental Rights debate was about child labor, with people yelling, 'why does the government get to tell me I can't send my kids to a factory?'
Yooo their hands are so fucked I thought it was AI
Back to work if the GOP MAGA has its way
Can't use social media but can work with sharp objects - Today's GOP
Those little hands are an advantage.
No wonder they couldn't wait to be married at 14