The haunting photographs of early 20th century American child workers that helped change labour laws

[XemaSab]

19. It hit me when looking at these photos

how "recent" and yet how long ago 100 years really is.

It's not my grandparents' generation, but it IS their parents' generation, and there was some hardcore stuff that went down in those years.

My great-great grandpa in Sweden was adopted by another family (so he went from being a Pearson to being an Olson). When he was 13, he and his two older adopted sisters and their husbands and children came over to the US. The sisters and their families were dead of the flu within the year, leaving my ancestor orphaned in a country where he didn't even speak the language. I'm sure he had to go to work to support himself, and he made his way to Minnesota and became a boilermaker.

My great-great grandma (who would grow up to marry my great-great grandpa) grew up on a dairy north of Two Harbors. Her older brother ran away from home, so she had to be one of the "men" in the family in many ways. This included hitching up the team of oxen and taking the milk into town to sell. She did this year-round, even in the winter. This became her job starting at age 12.

I know that my grandparents' generation went through a lot growing up in the depression and then going off to war, but it was their parents' generation that seems so remote and so, so hardcore.

It's also fascinating that most of the kids in these pictures probably have living grandkids who have no idea that grandpa was working in a mill when he was 10.