ON THE EVILS OF CHILD LABOR IN 1907 BY THE AMERICAN POET EDWIN MARKHAM

Abstract

Edwin Markham (1852-1940), an American poet, achieved worldwide fame for the poem "The Man with the Hoe." Inspired by Millet's famous painting, the poem was a forceful protest against the degradation and exploitation of labor. Markham's description of child labor, written in 1907, stirred the nation with its bitter depiction of the evils of child labor. And the children are called in from play to drive and drudge beside their elders. The load falls upon the ones least able to bear it—upon the backs of the little children at the base of the labor pyramid. All the year in New York and in other cities you may watch children radiating to and from such pitiful homes. Nearly any hour on the East Side of New York City you can see them—pallid boy or spindling girl—their faces dulled, their backs bent under a heavy load of garments piled on head and shoulders, the muscles of the whole frame in a long strain. The boy always has bowlegs and walks with feet wide apart and wobbling. In the rush times of the year, preparing for the changes of seasons or for the great "white sales," there are no idle fingers in the sweatshops. A little child of "seven times one" can be very useful in threading needles, in cutting the loose threads left on, or for any stitch broken by the little bungling fingers. The light is not good, but baby eyes must "look sharp." In New York City alone, 60,000 children are shut up in the home sweatshops.