History Packet No. 7

Multi Era 5-7: 1850 to 1910

Child Labor in Cheshire County

The story of child labor in Cheshire County mirrors what was occurring throughout the rest of New Hampshire and New England. (To learn more about child labor in New Hampshire, see Lesson Plan No. 4, Child Labor & Progressive Reform in New Hampshire.) Different perhaps in scale and number of children in the work place, the types of jobs children performed were much like their counterparts in places with similar economic and environmental conditions.

When EuroAmericans began to settle the region, children were an important, if not vital, part of the family farm. Their role in supporting agriculture, however, diminished over time. This was due in part to environmental and economic conditions that made farming unprofitable and mechanization that slowly resulted in the need for less farm labor.

As farming diminished in New England, New Hampshire, and Cheshire County, industrialization was increasing. Labor to operate the increasing number of mills and factories was in high demand, and children had a role to play in many of the operations. New Hampshire census data from 1870 suggests this change from agricultural to industrial labor.

There were 3,168 children between the age of 10 and 15 at work in 1870. Of these child workers, 1,020 boys and 1 girl were employed in agriculture, or about 32% of the children who were recorded as working. Boys made up 6.5% of all agricultural laborers. The two dominant jobs for girls were as domestic servants (233 workers) and operatives in cotton and woolen mills (756 workers). These two fields employed 94% of all working girls in the state. Manufacturing and mining employed the most male children with 1,052 laborers; of these, 828 worked in textile mills. Children under the age of 16 made up 9.5% of the work force in New Hampshire textile mills. Child laborers accounted for about 3% of the total working population in 1870.

The towns of Gilsum, Harrisville, Hinsdale, Jaffrey, Keene, Marlborough, Swanzey, Troy, and Winchester all had textile mills in 1870. Although the number of children who worked at each mill is not known, we can comfortably predict that children were part of the work force in many if not all of these operations.

The glass industry also employed child laborers. In Cheshire County glass was produced in Keene from 1815 to 1853 and in Stoddard from 1842 to 1873. Children were hired to work as assistants to the glass blowers. Such work included hauling wood for the furnace, tending the furnace, and serving as "carrying off" boys - moving glass to and from the furnace during various stages in its production. Children were often hired for their quickness and because they could be paid lower wages. Temperatures in the glass factories probably rose to over 100 degrees with fumes and dust in the air and broken glass littered on the floor. This rare interior view is from the New Granite Glass Works in Stoddard, taken about 1861. Two or perhaps three of the workers appear to be young boys.

The 1880 Manufacturers Census for Cheshire County also revealed where children were working. In addition to the textile mills, child laborers worked in chair, cutlery, earthenware, hardware, and woodenware manufacturing. In Keene, woodenware and chair manufacturing comprised about 35% of all manufacturing in 1880. The Impervious Package Company, Hope Steam Mills (later known as Beaver Mills), and Sprague & Whitcomb all employed children under the age of 16, totaling about 6% of the woodenware work force. In the case of the Impervious Package Company, 10 of their 30 employees were children. Wages for employees started at $1.00 per day for a 9 or 10 hour day depending on the season of the year.

In the 1890s Impervious Package Company also operated a woodware mill in Spofford at the old Sumner Warren's Tannery. Two young boys are seen in this employee picture. The two young girls were not employees, however, but the daughters of the manager who would deliver his lunch.

There are several children's faces among the textile mill workers and staff at Troy Mills c.1883-1885. Warren C. Brown, in the first row on the far left, was about 13 when this picture was taken. He worked at the mill for 55 years. Troy Mills operated from 1865 to 2003.

Four child laborers are seen in this employee picture at the Keene Stone & Earthen Ware, or better known as Hampshire Pottery. The company operated from 1871 to 1923.

Boot and shoe manufacturers also hired children. In the photograph to the left are the employees of the Shaw Shoe Factory on Dunbar Street in Keene. There are a few young looking faces among the employees, yet none so telling as the group of children sitting in the foreground center/left. The Shaw Shoe Company operated from 1884 to 1889, although shoe manufacturing occurred at this site for a century.

Children also performed manufacturing work at home. Such labor does not appear in census data, however. Sewing, lace work, making flowers, weaving palm leaf hats, and caning were some of the jobs children did at home.

In Cheshire County, caning for rattan chairs, like those made by Lewis J. Colony, was an important part of the chair making industry, with much of this work done outside the mill. In Stoddard, during the winter of 1909, Wilson Mountford recorded several times in his diary that the family "all seated" today. The Mountford family struggled to survive by selling produce from their farm near Center Pond. To earn extra cash during the slow winter months, the entire family, including 11 year-old Pheroba and 9 year-old Wynn, weaved rattan chair seats for the Lewis J. Colony chair factory in Nelson at the rate of a few cents per chair. Pheroba, Wynn (the young boy in the photograph), and many other children in the region did this work for years to help their families meet expenses.

Lewis J. Colony manufactured chairs in Nelson for more than 40 years. He reported that 7 of his 15 employees were children in 1880. Wages at the Colony mill started at $.50 per day for a 9 or 10 hour day. Although no children are in this photograph, these are the types of chairs that Wynn and his family would weave chair seats for.

By 1920 child laborers engaged in gainful employment accounted for 7.7% of the work force in New England. Why did these children work? In many cases they needed to support themselves as orphans or if only one parent was living. Furthermore, fathers often could not earn enough money to support their families in low wage positions or if they did not have steady employment. Consequently, they had to depend on their children for support. In some cases, fathers were killed or disabled while on the job, forcing children into the work place to help keep the family together financially. In other cases children went to work to help the family increase its upward mobility, leaving school for the betterment of the family. And like today, some children did not like school and wanted their independence. Without strict rules to enforce school attendance, children were often able to leave school to find work that was more interesting to them.