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| Carmina Caruso (10 yrs old), Somerville, Massachusetts, August 1912. Photo by Lewis Hine. |
A typical view of Carmina Caruso, a ten year old Home Worker as
she walks around crocheting as she goes. See also other photos of her and Home Work report. Location: Somerville, Massachusetts,
August 1912, Lewis Hine.
"In Italy, I think she got as far as the second grade.
She didn't go to school at all in this country. But she taught herself a lot. She was tremendous in math. She could figure
out every little detail, and she was a great household manager." -Frances Leccese, daughter-in-law of Carmina
Caruso
*************************** The following is from Child Labor in Home Industries, by Mary Van Kleeck, published in 1915. "The present employment of children in tenements in New York City gives no
ground for optimism regarding New York State's method of regulating home work. A casual investigator who chooses to walk through
the crowded tenement districts will find children at work who would not be permitted to enter a factory. He will see women
and children carrying bundles of clothing or boxes of artificial flowers from workshop to home, and if he should follow any
of them he would learn something of the system of industry which makes child labor still possible in New York State." "Two days ago one of my fellow workers visited a family living on Thompson
Street. It was after school hours. She found a mother and four children making artificial flowers. The oldest girl was eleven
years old. Her sister was nine, her little brother was seven, and a little sister was five. The three older children had just
come home from school, but the youngest child was too young to go, and worked all day separating the petals of artificial
flowers. The oldest child of eleven was deformed. She was not larger than a child of five." "The mother and four children have set themselves a certain allotment of work to finish each day, and the book
in which their earnings are recorded by the employer says that those earnings are sixty cents a day. To earn that sixty cents
a day, they must make six dozen wreaths of daisies, three or four pieces to each daisy, and thirty-nine daisies on each wreath.
The father is a ragman earning six dollars a week. The brother is out of work. The mother and children work until ten or eleven
o'clock at night, and what they do not finish at night they must get up in time to finish in the morning before school begins.
The little girl, Angelina, said she did the work the teacher gave her to do at home before school in the morning. ‘This
morning, first I did the writing," she said, "then I did the two times, and then the three times, so I won't have
so much to do tomorrow. I like school better than home. I don't like home. There's too many flowers.'"
The wagon that delivers Home Work to Somerville, Mass. the owner of
wagon (who is not the driver) is O.H. Brown, 27 Main Street, Reading Mass. These wagons (about 4 in all) are worked on commission,
not owned by the factory. Location: Somerville, Massachusetts, August 1912, Lewis Hine.
Continue with story of Carmina Caruso
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