Robert Kidd, Page One

I've seen this popular Hine photo many times, and every time I do, I can't stop staring at it. The boy looks so sad and weary. Because Hine didn't give him a name in the caption, I have been hesitant to try any research, though I have been successful for a few other unidentified children. But several months ago (October 2008), the photo popped up on Shorpy.com, my favorite photo blog. In December, there was a startling comment from a reader: "There's a note that says on the back of the caption card someone has written "Rob Kidd?".

I went to the Library of Congress website, and down near the bottom of the cataloguing information, I found this: "Pencilled annotation on caption card by Prints and Photographs Division staff person: "Rob Kidd?". I had never noticed this, of course. Perhaps someone at the library had recognized him.

I looked up Robert Kidd in the 1910 census, and there he was, in Alexandria, his father and several brothers listed as working in a glass factory. Pretty soon, I was in contact with Amy Bertsch, at the Office of Historic Alexandria. She was familiar with the photo, and intrigued by my call. Within days, she had sent me a lot of birth and death records on the family. Thanks to her, I was able to track down Robert's daughter, Catherine Dicks, who lives in Florida.

I sent her the photo and called her up two weeks later. She said that she recognized her father right away, and she also mentioned that her mother, Robert's widow, lives next to her, and that she is 101 years old. What a stunner that was.

In Child Labor: An American History (M.E. Sharpe, 2002), author Hugh D. Hindman includes excerpts from investigative reports about working conditions for children in glass factories (not in Alexandria) in the early 1900s. After reading some of them below, you will see that Robert would have had reasons to feel sad and weary.

The different "jobs" done by boys in the glass factories each have a distinctive name. In the blown-ware factories at the side of the blowers and gatherer stands the little "cracker-off" boy who breaks the cooling, wax-like glass from the end of the blowpipe after the chimney or bottle has been left in the mold; sitting at the feet of the blower is the "holding-mold" boy, who opens and shuts the molds; then the "sticker-up" or "warming-in" boy, who takes a ware from the mold and holds it to the "glory-hole," reheating the mouth that it may be shaped by the gaffer, or finisher; from the finisher the "carry-in" boy takes the ware to the lehr (oven), where it is properly tempered and made ready for packing." -Herschel H. Jones, National Child Labor Committee (NCLC) Investigation Report 321, p. 8

The shop boys get into the regular swing or "gait"...and when these semi-automatic movements are once acquired the boys can pass each other to and fro in an extremely small space, and even regularly jostle their bodies against each other without much danger of striking one another with hot tools or hot glass. The constant changing of "small help," however, is continuously thrusting green boys into the shop, in which case there is real danger until all engaged in the "team" work get into a harmonious swing. -U.S. Bureau of Labor, Glass, p. 83

At least a dozen of the carrying-in boys were probably under 16. Boys were working fast and too busy to talk with. These little boys did not look healthy, many of them, not fit to do their all-night in the intense heat and hurry. They are on the walk all the time for ten hours and must travel many miles. Timed one boy and paced the distance; at his rate he walked a little over 20 miles per night. -Charles L. Chute, NCLC Investigation Report 314, p. 15

There is something very weird and uncanny about a glass house at night. To get the full effect of this, one must visit it at twelve or one o'clock or later when streets are deserted and everyone else is in bed. The yelling of the boys as they run back and forth to the lehrs; the popping of glass bubbles as the blower draws his pipe up from the mould; the swish of the wind and the clank of moulds; all these sounds break upon the stillness of the night before you reach the factory. The glass men often tell how the boys in their factories are so happy that they sing while they work. But it isn't singing, it is the monotonous yelling that the boys keep up, not exactly to keep them awake as a resident of the glass house town outside Pittsburgh seemed to think, but to counteract the dullness of their work. The boys must always be alert to keep up with the blower or presser. -Herschel H. Jones, NCLC Investigation Report 321, p. 20