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United States Labor History

Selected Primary Sources

"Elbert Hollingsworth, ten year old cotton picker..."

"Elbert Hollingsworth, ten year old cotton picker. Picks 125 pounds a day. Also Ruby Hollingsworth, seven year old cotton picker. Works all day, early and late, in the hot sun. Picks about thirty-five pounds a day. Father, mother, and several brothers and sisters pick. They get only five or six months of schooling. "It's not 'nuff," the father said. The children said "We'd ruther go to school." Address Box 18, R.F.D. Location: Denison, Texas."--Photo by Lewis Hine, ca. September 1913

Library of Congress

(photo courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA)