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| L-R: Lumina (12) & Elizabeth Desmarais (13), Winchendon, Mass., September 1911. Photo by Lewis Hine. |
Elizabeth Demaris [i.e., Demarais?], 13 years old. A spinner in the Spring
Village Mill, Winchendon, Mass. Been working since May. Lumina Demaris, sister of Elizabeth, admitted 12 years old. Been a
doffer in Spring Village Mill all summer, Father and sister Elizabeth works steady. They keep two boarders. Her doffing crew
has three girls and 5 boys. Location: Winchendon, Massachusetts, September 1911, Lewis Hine.
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| Zoel & Alexina Desmarais, date unknown. Photo provided by family. |
Several decades after the Civil War, Joseph Nelson White, owner of two
denim mills in Winchendon, Massachusetts, started traveling to Quebec to recruit French-speaking men and their families for
his workforce. With the Industrial Revolution in full swing in New England, especially textile manufacturing, there was
strong competition for cheap and relatively unskilled labor. One of those men was Zoel Desmarais, who arrived in Winchendon
with his new bride, Alexina Lefevre, in 1897. Three years later,
they already had two daughters, two-year-old Elizabeth, and her one-year-old sister Lumina. Before they reached their adolescent
years, the girls were working in the Winchendon Springs mill, where their father worked as a weaver. In September of 1911,
child labor photographer Lewis Hine encountered the girls at the mill and took a total of seven pictures of them, alone, together,
and with others. They were both under the Massachusetts legal age limit of 14 years for such work. Their two younger brothers
would follow them into the mill later. Lumina would go on to marry
Paul Dube. Elizabeth would marry Ludger Cote; and later, Leon Archambeault, after Ludger's death in 1958. An article
in the Fitchburg (Mass) Sentinel in 1958 announced the 61st wedding anniversary of Zoel and Alexina, noting that
they had four children, 13 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren. They lived at 161 Glenallan Street, no more than a short
walk from the Springs mill. My research, both in the Winchendon Town Hall and on the Internet, quickly turned up a lot of information,
including the names, addresses and phone numbers of Lumina's only son, Richard, and one of Elizabeth's daughters, Alexina.
Both live within an hour of Winchendon. Like most descendants of child laborers I have contacted, they were stunned by the
existence of the photos. On the following pages, see the text of those interviews, plus many photographs.
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