Two of the Young Doffers, Cotton Mill, North Pormal (i.e. Pownal), VT, August, 1919

Using his camera as a tool for social reform, Hine devoted a significant portion of his career to documenting child labor in the United States during the early 20th century. Exposing the deplorable conditions to which thousands of school-aged workers were subjected, Hine’s photographs became instrumental in the revision of child labor laws. Here two young boys working as doffers, who removed the filled spindles on the cotton mill and replaced them with empty ones, fill the pictorial field. Their monumental stature in the composition belies their young ages; some doffers worked as early as age seven.