Standing on a Box | Gaston-Lincoln Regional Library System

Standing on a Box
Lewis Hine's National Child Labor Committee Photography
Gaston County, 1908
A multi-part community project exploring Greater Gaston's early twentieth-century
textile heritage and its influence on our present and future.

All events are free and open to the public.
Events are appropriate for adults
and students grades 4 through 12.
Information: 704-868-2164 / Dial 4

Saturday, November 15, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Gaston County 1908: Before / During / After
A panel discussion of textile history and culture
Featuring historians Dr. Roxanne Newton - Mitchell Community College
Dr. James Leloudis - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Dr. David Goldfield - University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Dr. Thomas Hanchett - Levine Museum of the New South
Auditorium - Gaston County Public Library
1555 East Garrison Boulevard - Gastonia, North Carolina

Gaston Reads!
COUNTING ON GRACE by Elizabeth Winthrop
Award-winning novel about life in
a turn-of-the-century textile community
and the plucky youth determined to build a better future.
September 2 - November 30, 2008

Friday, November 21, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Gastonia 1908: Mill Music & Drama
A concert of string band music and dramatic excerpts
Featuring Royce Robinson & Friends and
Possum Hollar Old Time String Band

Fellowship Hall - West Avenue Presbyterian Church
1015 West Franklin Boulevard - Gastonia, North Carolina

Community-wide
reading opportunity
for adults and students
in grades 4 through 12.

Read the book,
then discuss it
with family, friends,
book club, classmates,
and other readers.

Get your free copy of
COUNTING ON GRACE
at all Gaston County
Public Library locations
beginning
September 2.

(Limit one copy
per household)

Lewis Wickes Hine (1874 -1940), photographer, sociologist and humanist, is best known for his insightful portraits of immigrants at Ellis Island and his unflinching views of housing and labor conditions in the United States. Studying and eventually teaching at the Ethical Culture School in New York City, Hine infused his humanist concerns into a style of documentary photography that set the standard for delivering a social message through his medium. Hine began documenting immigrants arriving and awaiting processing at Ellis Island around 1904, then explored the immigrant experience with his probing lens and exposed the terrible housing and working conditions they were subject to in their attempts to integrate into their new homeland. Believing in the power of photography to persuade authorities to enact better housing codes for tenements and labor laws protecting children, Hine approached social welfare agencies about using his images for reform campaigns. In 1907 he was invited to participate in the Pittsburgh Survey, which was designed to investigate the living and working conditions of that heavily industrialized city. Lewis Hine then became a staff photographer for the National Child Labor Committee, travelling across much of the southern and eastern states to document the working conditions of factories, fields, mines, mills and canneries which made use of child labor. The results of Hine's photographic pursuits eventually led to the establishment of child labor and safety laws for all workers. The worker was always a favorite theme of Hine, and he believed that the emerging modern technologies of the 1920's and 1930's would lift the burden of hard labor from them. In the 1920's Hine began a series of photographs he called "Work Portraits" which showed man and machine at work together. Perhaps his best known series from this group is his commission to document the construction of the Empire State Building from March 1930 to May 1931.

"Doffers in Trenton Mills, Gastonia, North Carolina. Others as small and some smaller. Little girls too." November 1908.

"Ozark Mill, Gastonia, North Carolina. Work 12 hours at a stretch. No special time off to eat. 'Eat a-workin.' 9:00 P.M. Friday, November 6, 1908. Mill was running."

The National Child Labor Committee was organized on April 25, 1904 at a mass meeting at Carnegie Hall in New York City citizens concerned with the plight of working children. They moved quickly to form an organization, to gain the support of prominent Americans, and to identify the extent and scope of the problem. In 1907 the NCLC was chartered by an Act of Congress, and immediately began to move towards action and advocacy. One of the Committee's first steps took place in early 1908 with the hiring of a budding anthropologist and photographer, Lewis Wickes Hine. His photographs would awaken the consciousness of the nation, and change the reality of life for millions of impoverished, undereducated children. Based in New York City, the organization continues to be a leading force working on behalf of the young people in the areas of child labor law and youth education.

"Trenton Mill, Gastonia, North Carolina. Tom Jenkins (left hand end) 13 years old, been in mill 3 year. Walter Jenkins, 15 years old. 4 years in mill. John Glover, (right hand) 16 years old, at mill 5 years. Closing hour, 3 p.m., Saturday." November 1908.

Special thanks to Standing on a Box...Planning Committee members: Dr. Robert C. Allen - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Lucy Penegar - Gaston County Historic Preservation Commission; Jeff Pruett - Gaston County Museum of Art & History; Dr. Roxanne Newton - Mitchell Community College; Dr. Thomas Hanchett - Levine Museum of the New South; Bernadette Carpenter - Friends of the Gaston County Public Library; Nancy Moore - community volunteer; Carol Reinhardt - Gaston County Public Library; and to Peter Plaksin - Friends of the Gaston County Public Library; Juliette Shelley - Gaston Arts Council; author Ron Rash; Yvonne Gibbs - Gaston County Grants Analyst; Elizabeth Dampier - Gaston County Museum of Art & History; J. Myrick Howard - Preservation North Carolina; Dr. Harlan Gradin and Dr. Jennifer McCollum - North Carolina Humanities Council.

This project has been made possible by the North Carolina Humanities Council, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the North Carolina Arts Council, an agency funded by the State of North Carolina and the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art. Assistance and support has also been provided by Preservation North Carolina, Friends of the Gaston County Public Library, Gaston County Museum of Art & History, Gaston County Historic Preservation Commission, Gaston County Public Library, Gaston Arts Council, and community volunteers.

"A few of the girls going home from Loray mill,
Gastonia, North Carolina. Many others younger." November 1908

Tell us about your
GASTON READS
COUNTING ON GRACE
discussions and activities at
library@co.gaston.nc.us.

To share your family's mill village
memories with The Gaston Gazette
please
contact Interactive Services Editor Kevin Ellis
at 704-869-1823 or
kellis@gastongazette.com.