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| Alberta Bonneau, 15 yrs old, Fall River, Massachusetts, June 21, 1916. Photo by Lewis Hine. |
King Philip Mill - Card Room. Doffer on Jack Speeder. Bertha Bonneau, 15 years, 105 Slade St. Location:
Fall River, Massachusetts / Lewis W. Hine, June 21, 1916.
"My mother kept us clean. People would give her clothes.
She would take the clothes apart, wash them, and make us dresses and pants and whatever. She would also get those cloth feedbags
from the store and make clothes from them. We always looked good." -Dorothy Tremblay, daughter of Alberta Bonneau
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When Alberta Bonneau was growing up, Fall River was a bustling
city of over 100,000, still riding the wave of prosperity that began in the 1870s, when the dramatic expansion of its textile
industry turned this community of immigrants into the biggest cotton mill center in the US. The city had fancy hotels, opulent
theaters, beautiful parks, impressive schools, streetcars, a public water supply, and a modern sewer system. Typically though,
that prosperity did not extend to most of its workforce, most of which lived in crowded tenements and depended on the employment
of their children to supplement their income. This was the case with the Bonneau family.
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| Recent photo of former King Philip Mill. Source not credited. |
The King Philip Mill was established in 1871 with an initial
investment of $500,000. Later on, a new mill was built, which boasted more than 50,000 spindles. In 1930, it was taken over
by Berkshire Fine Spinning Associates. Lewis Hine took more than 200 photos of child laborers in Fall River. At that time,
Massachusetts law stipulated that children under the age of 14 were not allowed to work in factories, so Alberta, at 15, would
have been working there legally at the time. But it is likely that she had already been there a few years.
Alberta Bonneau was born in Fall River on July 12, 1900,
the first child of Joseph Bonneau and Zenaide (Croteau) Bonneau, who were born in Quebec. They married in 1899. Alberta married
Octave Saucier, a mill machinist, in 1919. He was employed later as a cabinet maker. He died in 1930. Alberta remarried in
1942, to Ludger Dionne, who died in 1968. Alberta passed away on April 21, 1995, at the age 94. She was survived by two daughters,
three sons, seven grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren, and a great-great-grandson. I contacted one of the daughters, Dorothy Tremblay, who lives in Swansea, just
several miles from Fall River. She had seen the Hine photograph before, but did not have a copy of it.
Interview with daughter, and more photos
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