Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship
WINOOSKI — While children of today fill their days with games in the park, school and naptime, kids 100 years ago led very different lives. Working with heavy machinery in the mills lining the Winooski River, selling newspapers on the corner of Main Street, or chopping up wood in a lumber yard were activities of an average child in the 19th and early 20th century.
In April, the Heritage Winooski Mill Museum debuted its newest permanent exhibit on child labor. Five years in the making, the exhibit illuminates the history of child labor in Winooski.
The museum is located in the Champlain Mill, a repurposed textile mill where children, most younger than 12, worked in the late 19th and early 20th century.
In a large room in the former mill, visitors are greeted by enlarged black-and-white photographs of children in grease-stained aprons, with soot on their faces, working in the mills. A gallery of these photographs lines the walls, surrounded by information about the long hours and dangerous conditions faced by child laborers.
Many of the photographs in the exhibit were taken by Lewis Hine, a photographer and muckraker in the early 1900s. Hine is responsible for much of what we know about child labor in this era. He traveled across the East Coast to photograph children at work to help the National Child Labor Committee push for federal labor reforms, which were put into law in 1938. Throughout his journeys, Hine made stops across Vermont.
The Mill Museum previously displayed a series of Hine’s black-and-white photos. The new exhibit tells the stories of children at work in Winooski and displays information about current child labor issues. It also includes interactive elements to engage the museum’s youngest patrons, such as guiding questions and word-matching games.
“I really wanted this exhibit to be more interactive for kids and have hands-on experience, especially since the exhibit is about children,” museum director Miriam Block said.
The museum funded the exhibit with grants from Vermont Humanities, along with contributions from donors.
Erica Donnis conducted the historical research that supplemented Hine’s photographs.
“All history is local, as the saying goes. This (museum) is a great example of a place that is very close to home that students can connect with on a local level to learn more about not only the history of child labor at large, but also thinking about what that means for them today,” said Donnis, who is also an archivist at the University of Vermont Special Collections Library.
In many parts of the world, families face the same financial pressures that caused Winooski residents to send their children to work in the mills 100 years ago. The exhibit features a world map that encourages children and families to look at the tags on their clothing and see if they use child labor in their manufacturing.
“I’ve seen over the years people come to the museum and look at these historic photos, maybe a parent says to their kid, ‘Look at these photos of the kids who worked at the mill, aren’t you glad you didn’t have to do that?’” Block said. “My goal is not to have people look at those photos and think that this is the past and it doesn’t exist today.”
Winooski is Vermont’s most diverse city, with many immigrants, refugees and first-generation American children. When school groups tour the museum, Block noted that many students have their own ideas about child labor. They may see it as normal, or simply a way to support one’s family, which isn’t unlike the attitudes of Winooski residents a century ago.
Cyrus Dudgeon, a teacher at Essex High School, recently brought a group of students in the school’s Global Leadership Program to see the exhibit. He said that the museum was a useful learning tool for his students.
“It’s a very tangible piece of local history that kind of provides a glimpse into a problem that needs to be fixed all across the world,” Dudgeon said.
The museum is hosting a professional development day on June 17 to encourage teachers to use the museum in their curriculum. The Heritage Winooski Mill Museum is open Thursdays and Fridays from noon-4 p.m.