The original caption for this image reads: Young Driver in Mine. Has been driving one year. 7 A.M. to 5:30 P.M. daily [at] Brown Mine, Brown W. Va. [West Virginia].
This photograph was taken by Lewis Hine, an investigative photographer for the National Child Labor Committee. Hine traveled the country taking pictures of children working in all types of industries: coal mines, meatpacking houses, textile mills, canneries, in the streets selling newspapers, and other places.
The industrial boom of the late 1800s and early 1900s had caused an increased demand for labor. Children often worked to help support their families. By the early 1900s many Americans were demanding an end to child labor. In 1904 a group of progressive reformers founded the National Child Labor Committee and received a charter from Congress in 1907. It hired investigators to gather evidence of children working in harsh conditions, to try to abolish child labor.
