Excerpt from U.S. Congressional Hearings, March 2–7, 1912

Reproduced in Joyce Kornbluh's Rebel Voices: An I.W.W. Anthology, published in 1964

When Camella Teoli was in the seventh grade, she did not go to school. She went to work in a factory.

Children had been employed in textile factories ever since textile factories were first built in Britain during the last part of the 1700s. Children made ideal workers: they did not complain about low wages or long hours, they did not argue with overseers, and they were small and nimble—their tiny hands were ideal for operating textile machines.

As with adult workers, children were sometimes injured on the job. Sometimes their injuries resulted in death; other times, they were maimed or crippled for life. In both Britain and the United States, these incidents eventually led to laws barring very young children from...