These are 27 emotional portrait photos of American child laborers taken by photographer Lewis Wickes Hine in the 1900s and 1910s.

5-year old picking cotton, Comanche County, Oklahoma, 1916

5-year-old after day’s work, was tired and refused to be photographed, Biloxi, Mississippi, 1911

11-year-old girl picking cotton, Oklahoma, 1916

14-year-old boy has been working in cotton mills for 6 years, Cuero, Texas, 1913

15-year-old messenger boy working for Mackay Telegraph Company, Waco, Texas, 1913

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