The tragic story of one photograph (6 photos)

This shot is 110 years old, and looking at the faces of these girls, it’s hard to imagine that these are real company employees who have just finished their shift. A very difficult shift.





The girls are Josie, Bertha (six years old) and Sophie (ten years old). The photo was taken in the small town of Port Royal (South Carolina), which even now has a population of less than 15 thousand people. These girls are employees of Maggioni Canning Co. The company is engaged in oysters and still exists and can often be reminded of the slave labor conditions of 100 years ago.



The Four-Year-Old Girl Who Shucked Two Pots of Oysters a Day

In 1911, Bertha, Sophie and Josie were shucking oysters at work and their workday began at four in the morning. Like other children, they worked four hours before school and three hours after. On average, children earned from 9 to 15 dollars a week - it all depended on the number of pots of oysters they managed to sort through.

And children were paid significantly less than adults, even if they met and exceeded the quota. And there was another injustice - girls received less than boys simply by virtue of the fact that they were girls.





Sophie, who is 10 years old in the photo, has already left school. She had no time and her mother, who worked with her, explained that the girl needed to work, but what kind of mathematics was there after a hard morning shift? The children were tired, lethargic... They understood that they would not have any rest after school, because they had to rush back to Maggioni Canning Co. It has always been difficult for the poor, and not just for adults.



More children working hard jobs

Photos taken by Lewis Hine. This photographer saw many children working exhausted in factories and even pretended to be an equipment supplier or Bible salesman in order to be in the factory and photograph the conditions in which the employees worked.

Lewis took photos both on the streets and inside the factory. And it was his photographs that had a great influence on the fact that attitudes towards child labor began to change.



The barracks where the employees of the Maggioni Canning Co. lived. There is a swamp all around and the building literally stands on a pile of old shells

This is a historical document demonstrating the unceremonious and ugly side of the era. Shameful. Unfortunately, nothing is known about the further fate of Josie, Bertha and Sophie. I would like to believe that they were able to get out of the bondage of hard work and find their happiness. If, of course, they were able to survive at all.



Another worker is a five-year-old shrimp picker.