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"From April 29 to May 16, 1911, I made quiet visits to every cotton mill in the state, with but one or two exceptions, and in all cases, spending some time inside the mills at noon-hours, as well as other hours spent around the mills at noon-hours, and around the homes at various times. In some of the villages, I made a careful house-to-house canvass, locating the homes of the working children and getting data about them." -Lewis Hine, from Child Labor in the Cotton Mills of Mississippi, archived at the Library of Congress

According to Child Labor in the American South, by Joshua Kuderna (University of Maryland, Baltimore County), the Magnolia Cotton Mill opened in Magnolia, Mississippi in 1903. According to a number of investigative reports by the National Child Labor Committee, Mississippi had the lowest standard of wages for children and adults in 1908 among cotton mills in the country. Federal investigators reported that the smaller villages were often primitive, their streets just wagon roads, and chickens, pigs and cows ran free.

In 1908, Mississippi became the final state in the South to pass a child labor law. The law called for no children under 12 to be employed in cotton or woolen mills. The laws also called for no more than 10 hours a day for children under 16. But in 1911, the National Child Labor Committee found that workers at the Magnolia Cotton Mill were working 63 hours a week.

In a number of photos by Lewis Hine at the Magnolia mill, it was apparent that many of the children were under the age of 12. In fact, he reported that the children he encountered were told to say they were 12 years old, even if it was obvious that they were younger.

In February of 2007, my Lewis Hine Project was the subject of a story on National Public Radio's news program called "All Things Considered." Shortly after, I received the following email:

"I heard about your project by total chance on NPR, so I looked it up through their website. I don't know if you are soliciting people to come forward. I know there are many stories that were never told. Our family is connected to the photos through my grandfather, Ralph Kuyrkendall, from Magnolia, Mississippi. Many of the family members were also photographed in front of their mill house. If you wish to have any other info, please email back. -Sincerely, Karen Walsh"

I found the photos of the Kuyrkendall family on the Library of Congress website right away and replied to Ms. Walsh, telling her I was interested. I had already spent countless hours of research on many other photos, trying to track down descendants; so being contacted first by a descendant of a child laborer was a welcome surprise.