When I was growing up in rural SW Va in the 1970s and 80s,I knew a whole generations of older relatives and other people their age,born and raised in the early 20th century,that this article perfectly described.They talked of working in the fields or doing other farmwork as barely toddler age,and if they had the chance to go to school,most barely got past 2nd-3rd grade, couldn't read a word,could barely scrawl their name on a document,and I was one of many younger kids who did their paperwork and read their mail to them.I witnessed"X"signatures on documents long before it was legal for me to do so,because I was the only available person to do so,that could read and write.
Kids weren't expected to need to be sent to school,there were no truancy laws,or laws that compelled parents to send their kids to school regularly(the current age for that is 6-16,no matter where you live.)
When the child labor laws changed,so did the laws mandating school attendance.I now believe the lax child labor laws that are cropping up,and the government suddenly wanting to abolish the Department of Education,is no accident.They want these kids working,not attending school and learning,and to prevent parents from getting in trouble doing this.
This needs to be promoted far and wide,and not let this happen under the radar.Our kids deserve better.
Thank you for sharing such a heartfelt and vivid perspective. Your story is a powerful reminder of how close this history still is—and how easily it could become reality again. You’re absolutely right that these rollbacks and attacks on education aren’t random—they’re part of a broader push to prioritize labor over learning. Your insight adds so much depth to this conversation, and I’m grateful you’ve shared it here. We can push back and make sure this doesn’t stay in the shadows.
Thank you so much.So much of what we are seeing now,is repeating what those people went through then.The Mom's for Fascism(they certainly don't care about liberty for anyone other than themselves!)are pushing the narrative that our kids don't need an education or need to broaden horizons.They promote ignorance so a whole generation of people can again be easy to pull the wool over their eyes,and become slaves to what they want.So very many people have fallen under this spell,and have no idea of the trap they are in,where rights no longer exist and no one can ever better themselves.
So very many of those illiterate people I knew,remained in poverty their entire lives,because that's how the powers that be back then wanted it.They were so much easier to exploit when they really didn't know any better that it was wrong.This is what people like tfg want very much now,for all of us.He wants to be rid of educated people so he can far easier get away with what he wants to do to the rest of us.
We have to find a way forward,to keep fighting and to let as many people as possible know what it is these people actually have in mind.And it ain't anything good, except for the morbidly wealthy.The rest of us lose if they are allowed to win.
Thank you for sharing more of your perspective, Melissa. You’ve highlighted some really important connections between the past and what’s happening today. I appreciate your thoughtful insight and your commitment to ensuring these issues don’t go unnoticed.
I hope modern photo-journalists in the United States are hard at work documenting children working in meatpacking plants, agriculture and other dangerous and exhausting jobs, in defiance of both law and ethics. Rolling back workers' protections is iniquitous, all the more so when it puts children to work long hours in harmful environments.
You’re absolutely right—documenting these violations is so important. It’s heartbreaking to think that we’re even talking about rolling back protections like this. Exposing the harsh realities of child labor could be exactly what’s needed to spark public outrage and push for change. Let’s hope today’s journalists and advocates are ready to shine a light on this and keep the pressure on.
What a shame that those who screamed over Biden’s actions regarding Gaza and the West Bank affected the vote so dramatically, without a caveat explaining what his loss would mean.
You’re spot on. Compulsory education was a cornerstone of protecting children from exploitation, and dismantling public schools through voucher programs feels like a step backward. It’s unsettling how these efforts seem to align with eroding those hard-won protections.
The houses I've lived in and the boats I worked were all painted with lead base paint. The fact that this his has adversely affected most of our adults and children is of no concern to those who regulate the sale of homes, as we know from the network of lead pipes that are still used to deliver drinking water to the majority of homes in almost every city in our nation. The fact that those who govern have been aware of this problem throughout our nation's history is of consequence, but only to those of us who are still exposed to this mentally debilitating problem.
This problem coupled with other forms of working class exploitation will not stop and those of us who are born into this level of culture will remain victims of our upper echelon's greed which is taught in our finest schools as being acceptable, even necessary.
As our latest election shows we have a problem of inequality based on race, class and sex that will never be addressed let alone solved by men who consider themselves superior and know that defunding public school education as well as banning books, will allow them to remain in control.
Greed is a mental disease which coupled with the misleading harm brought to our people by the promotion and acceptance of supernatural belief may prove incurable.
At this point it appears our nation may be doomed as errors made by the fascists of 1930s and 1940s Europe will not be repeated by this latest edition.
Your comment really cuts to the heart of so many urgent issues—lead exposure, inequality, the assault on education, and the greed driving it all. It’s hard not to draw parallels to the mistakes of the past, as you pointed out. But history also shows us that people can push back and change the course when they come together. The challenges are daunting, but awareness is the first step toward building momentum for real change.
Of course, with the mass deportations planned they will need someone to do that labor. At the other end, perhaps cuts to Social Security will mean retirees will be sent to the factories and fields....
Sadly, it’s far more likely that they will hire out the inhabitants of those deportation camps as cheap labour - have to pay for their upkeep, you know (!)
It’s truly appalling that the world is cycling back around to this sort of awfulness. My grandfather left school at 13 with no qualifications, and went to work in the local iron ore mine. After a post-war stint in the British Army, he wound up working in the labs at ICI, and was very successful there. Imagine how much he could have done if he had been educated in the first place though!
It’s chilling to think how these cycles of exploitation keep repeating, isn’t it? From deportation camps potentially being used as sources of cheap labor to stripping opportunities for education, it all comes down to a disregard for human dignity. Your grandfather’s story is both inspiring and heartbreaking—it’s incredible what he achieved despite the odds, but it’s also a reminder of how much more he, and so many others, could have accomplished with the right opportunities. We owe it to future generations to break this cycle once and for all.
My dad was a child of immigrants and a 10th grade dropout. But after WWII he got a decent-paying factory job. Sadly those options for undereducated are gone.
It’s an awful thing that we’re not better than that nowadays. At some level I used to think that we progressed morally as a species. Back a ways, working in prisons and following the great deinstitutionalisation of the mentally ill from asylums made me realise that this was not so in many cases. So much has borne this out that I find it very hard to believe in humanitarian progress sometimes. It often seems fairly Hobbesian. Still, I hope.
I hear you—it’s heartbreaking to realize how often we fall short of the progress we like to think we’ve made. Your experiences in prisons and with deinstitutionalization must have been eye-opening and deeply challenging. It does feel Hobbesian at times, but like you, I hold on to hope. Change may be slow and uneven, but even small steps forward are worth fighting for.
I'm reminded of my time decades ago working with inmates (really 'outmates') of the county jail. I worked for state parks on habitat restoration and the like, leading crews on all sorts of tasks, from weed abatement to seed collection to tree removal to cleaning up messes left by researchers at rare habitat sites (researchers can mess up a place better than anyone). Anyway, in my state park uniform, driving my state-owned but unmarked van, I'd go to the jail and load 8-10 inmates for transport to the worksite. The vetting was done by the deputy based on my requirements of skills (that is, if we needed chainsaw work I wanted at least one small-engine repairman, or if we were headed out in the boat I required people who could swim). Whether the choice was voluntary for the inmates was not my department (and I have no idea whether the guys had a choice, tho they all told me that they preferred being outside with me to being stuck on the grounds of the jail). I should mention I never had any trouble with any of them.
One day, during my miles of driving to/from the jail, it occurred to me that an unscrupulous person might exploit the loose organization of this arrangement to make some change. If, for instance, one was to quit the parks department (keeping the uniform, of course), buy an old van and some tools, call the deputy and request some workers like always, it would be possible to run a landscaping business on the sly at very low cost. Just pick 'em up in the morning and return 'em at the correct time...
It is a failure of our American 'system of justice' that this is even conceivable, but it is also to me kinda funny...
That’s quite the scenario you’ve laid out—funny in the abstract but also deeply troubling when you think about how easily someone could exploit a system like that. It’s also a stark reminder of how the 13th Amendment was crafted with a loophole that allowed forced labor to persist through incarceration.
I spent a few years doing staff development for teachers in all the NYS juvenile facilities. That was an eye-opener. So many kids that never really had an education. We ended up teaching teachers and students how to publish using print-on-demand tech. Had incarerated youth publishing books they could read with their own kids. More on the publishing tech here https://www.edteck.com/publish/
Yes. I have an unpublished anonymous photo taken of my great grandmother and her children in a coal mining town. I have no details except that they came from Scotland to work for practically zero.
“Hazard-Order Regulations. Some young adults show an interest in inherently dangerous jobs. Current rules forbid many young people, even if their family is running the business, from working in such jobs. This results in worker shortages in dangerous fields and often discourages otherwise interested young workers from trying the more dangerous job. With parental consent and proper training, certain young adults should be allowed to learn and work in more dangerous occupations. This would give a green light to training programs and build skills in teenagers who may want to work in these fields.
• DOL should amend its hazard-order regulations to permit teenage workers access to work in regulated jobs with proper training and parental consent.”
"Mommy and Daddy need the money. So you will go and work at the <insert hazardous> plant."
Daddy: "Good. Now we will have the money to buy more Trump grift."
You’re so right—this really does feel more like a blueprint for exploitation than empowerment. Framing hazardous jobs as ‘opportunities’ with parental consent just feels like a thinly veiled excuse to put profits over kids’ safety. At this rate, maybe they’ll argue teenagers should be allowed to drink and smoke with a parental note too—because, you know, ‘building life skills.’
If this <expelited deleted> comes to pass, I would hope these kids will be aware that it was Trump and Maga Republicans that put them to work. And vote in future not to put their kids to work. But it will require them being outside of their information bubble to realize that.
Interesting to me that the current crop of republican cabinet-selects, and a large portion of other electeds, are stuck mentally & emotionally in the pre-adolescent phase of human development...indeed, one could infer they are trying to drag everyone else's spawn down to their level.
Thank you for the kind words! And you’re not wrong—it does feel like we’re watching a masterclass in arrested development. The real tragedy is how their policies aim to make sure the next generation stays stuck there too.
Parental rights should be a loser of an argument when balanced against the interest of the state in protecting child welfare, even if only to ensure that the child grows up to be a productive and healthy adult. In today’s environment, though, who knows?
Here’s another reason that parental rights is a loser of an argument. If the parent may choose to send their 9 year old to pull all-nighters cleaning the meat-packing plant, may they also choose to offer their 9 year old’s hand in marriage to a 40 year old man? May they choose to offer their 9 year old to his or her own relative to “marry”?
How far do they want to take this? Any chance that the sudden push for states’ rights on child labor (slavery) is related to the push for more births and less bodily autonomy for females?
You’re absolutely right—it’s appalling how far this ‘parental rights’ argument could be stretched. Allowing parents to exploit their kids in the name of rights completely ignores the state’s role in protecting child welfare. And yes, when you pair it with the attacks on bodily autonomy, it’s hard not to see a broader, deeply disturbing agenda. This trend should make all of us sick
It figures that the fascists behind project 2025 would move from exploiting and deporting immigrant labor onto exploiting and abusing children as replacements for those immigrants. The word "evil" doesn't fully describe the depths of inhumanity to which Trump and his greedy cult minions will sink.
It’s horrifying, but sadly not surprising. This kind of exploitation feels like a modern twist on the worst abuses of history—using the most vulnerable as pawns for profit. The cruelty behind these policies is staggering, and it’s a stark reminder of what unchecked greed and power can do.
Pictures of eight and ten year olds working is chilling, but I have been wondering for a while about the loads of “unaccompanied minors” that were crossing the border in the recent past. In particular the 15-17 year olds. Who feeds them? Who would act as a parent to keep them out of hazardous jobs? I suspect that without knowing English, most of them are not enrolling themselves in school. They seem like a very vulnerable group. Does anyone keep track of these older teens?
“You’re absolutely right, Alice—unaccompanied minors are incredibly vulnerable, especially those 15-17 years old. Without a support system or someone to act as their advocate, many end up working in dangerous industries like meatpacking or agriculture instead of going to school. Their lack of English and legal protections makes it even harder for them to avoid exploitation. The Department of Labor does try to enforce child labor laws, but enforcement is often spotty. We can assume new incoming administration won’t cure this problem.
When I was growing up in rural SW Va in the 1970s and 80s,I knew a whole generations of older relatives and other people their age,born and raised in the early 20th century,that this article perfectly described.They talked of working in the fields or doing other farmwork as barely toddler age,and if they had the chance to go to school,most barely got past 2nd-3rd grade, couldn't read a word,could barely scrawl their name on a document,and I was one of many younger kids who did their paperwork and read their mail to them.I witnessed"X"signatures on documents long before it was legal for me to do so,because I was the only available person to do so,that could read and write.
Kids weren't expected to need to be sent to school,there were no truancy laws,or laws that compelled parents to send their kids to school regularly(the current age for that is 6-16,no matter where you live.)
When the child labor laws changed,so did the laws mandating school attendance.I now believe the lax child labor laws that are cropping up,and the government suddenly wanting to abolish the Department of Education,is no accident.They want these kids working,not attending school and learning,and to prevent parents from getting in trouble doing this.
This needs to be promoted far and wide,and not let this happen under the radar.Our kids deserve better.
Thank you for sharing such a heartfelt and vivid perspective. Your story is a powerful reminder of how close this history still is—and how easily it could become reality again. You’re absolutely right that these rollbacks and attacks on education aren’t random—they’re part of a broader push to prioritize labor over learning. Your insight adds so much depth to this conversation, and I’m grateful you’ve shared it here. We can push back and make sure this doesn’t stay in the shadows.
Thank you so much.So much of what we are seeing now,is repeating what those people went through then.The Mom's for Fascism(they certainly don't care about liberty for anyone other than themselves!)are pushing the narrative that our kids don't need an education or need to broaden horizons.They promote ignorance so a whole generation of people can again be easy to pull the wool over their eyes,and become slaves to what they want.So very many people have fallen under this spell,and have no idea of the trap they are in,where rights no longer exist and no one can ever better themselves.
So very many of those illiterate people I knew,remained in poverty their entire lives,because that's how the powers that be back then wanted it.They were so much easier to exploit when they really didn't know any better that it was wrong.This is what people like tfg want very much now,for all of us.He wants to be rid of educated people so he can far easier get away with what he wants to do to the rest of us.
We have to find a way forward,to keep fighting and to let as many people as possible know what it is these people actually have in mind.And it ain't anything good, except for the morbidly wealthy.The rest of us lose if they are allowed to win.
Thank you for sharing more of your perspective, Melissa. You’ve highlighted some really important connections between the past and what’s happening today. I appreciate your thoughtful insight and your commitment to ensuring these issues don’t go unnoticed.
Thanks for this insight.
I hope modern photo-journalists in the United States are hard at work documenting children working in meatpacking plants, agriculture and other dangerous and exhausting jobs, in defiance of both law and ethics. Rolling back workers' protections is iniquitous, all the more so when it puts children to work long hours in harmful environments.
You’re absolutely right—documenting these violations is so important. It’s heartbreaking to think that we’re even talking about rolling back protections like this. Exposing the harsh realities of child labor could be exactly what’s needed to spark public outrage and push for change. Let’s hope today’s journalists and advocates are ready to shine a light on this and keep the pressure on.
What a shame that those who screamed over Biden’s actions regarding Gaza and the West Bank affected the vote so dramatically, without a caveat explaining what his loss would mean.
This is at one with the voucher programs to kill public schools. Compulsory education was part of the effort.
You’re spot on. Compulsory education was a cornerstone of protecting children from exploitation, and dismantling public schools through voucher programs feels like a step backward. It’s unsettling how these efforts seem to align with eroding those hard-won protections.
Thanks for clarifying my comment.
The houses I've lived in and the boats I worked were all painted with lead base paint. The fact that this his has adversely affected most of our adults and children is of no concern to those who regulate the sale of homes, as we know from the network of lead pipes that are still used to deliver drinking water to the majority of homes in almost every city in our nation. The fact that those who govern have been aware of this problem throughout our nation's history is of consequence, but only to those of us who are still exposed to this mentally debilitating problem.
This problem coupled with other forms of working class exploitation will not stop and those of us who are born into this level of culture will remain victims of our upper echelon's greed which is taught in our finest schools as being acceptable, even necessary.
As our latest election shows we have a problem of inequality based on race, class and sex that will never be addressed let alone solved by men who consider themselves superior and know that defunding public school education as well as banning books, will allow them to remain in control.
Greed is a mental disease which coupled with the misleading harm brought to our people by the promotion and acceptance of supernatural belief may prove incurable.
At this point it appears our nation may be doomed as errors made by the fascists of 1930s and 1940s Europe will not be repeated by this latest edition.
Your comment really cuts to the heart of so many urgent issues—lead exposure, inequality, the assault on education, and the greed driving it all. It’s hard not to draw parallels to the mistakes of the past, as you pointed out. But history also shows us that people can push back and change the course when they come together. The challenges are daunting, but awareness is the first step toward building momentum for real change.
Of course, with the mass deportations planned they will need someone to do that labor. At the other end, perhaps cuts to Social Security will mean retirees will be sent to the factories and fields....
Scary idea. Now I'm remembering the movie "Soylent Green"
Sadly, it’s far more likely that they will hire out the inhabitants of those deportation camps as cheap labour - have to pay for their upkeep, you know (!)
It’s truly appalling that the world is cycling back around to this sort of awfulness. My grandfather left school at 13 with no qualifications, and went to work in the local iron ore mine. After a post-war stint in the British Army, he wound up working in the labs at ICI, and was very successful there. Imagine how much he could have done if he had been educated in the first place though!
It’s chilling to think how these cycles of exploitation keep repeating, isn’t it? From deportation camps potentially being used as sources of cheap labor to stripping opportunities for education, it all comes down to a disregard for human dignity. Your grandfather’s story is both inspiring and heartbreaking—it’s incredible what he achieved despite the odds, but it’s also a reminder of how much more he, and so many others, could have accomplished with the right opportunities. We owe it to future generations to break this cycle once and for all.
My dad was a child of immigrants and a 10th grade dropout. But after WWII he got a decent-paying factory job. Sadly those options for undereducated are gone.
It’s an awful thing that we’re not better than that nowadays. At some level I used to think that we progressed morally as a species. Back a ways, working in prisons and following the great deinstitutionalisation of the mentally ill from asylums made me realise that this was not so in many cases. So much has borne this out that I find it very hard to believe in humanitarian progress sometimes. It often seems fairly Hobbesian. Still, I hope.
I hear you—it’s heartbreaking to realize how often we fall short of the progress we like to think we’ve made. Your experiences in prisons and with deinstitutionalization must have been eye-opening and deeply challenging. It does feel Hobbesian at times, but like you, I hold on to hope. Change may be slow and uneven, but even small steps forward are worth fighting for.
In re prison labor:
I'm reminded of my time decades ago working with inmates (really 'outmates') of the county jail. I worked for state parks on habitat restoration and the like, leading crews on all sorts of tasks, from weed abatement to seed collection to tree removal to cleaning up messes left by researchers at rare habitat sites (researchers can mess up a place better than anyone). Anyway, in my state park uniform, driving my state-owned but unmarked van, I'd go to the jail and load 8-10 inmates for transport to the worksite. The vetting was done by the deputy based on my requirements of skills (that is, if we needed chainsaw work I wanted at least one small-engine repairman, or if we were headed out in the boat I required people who could swim). Whether the choice was voluntary for the inmates was not my department (and I have no idea whether the guys had a choice, tho they all told me that they preferred being outside with me to being stuck on the grounds of the jail). I should mention I never had any trouble with any of them.
One day, during my miles of driving to/from the jail, it occurred to me that an unscrupulous person might exploit the loose organization of this arrangement to make some change. If, for instance, one was to quit the parks department (keeping the uniform, of course), buy an old van and some tools, call the deputy and request some workers like always, it would be possible to run a landscaping business on the sly at very low cost. Just pick 'em up in the morning and return 'em at the correct time...
It is a failure of our American 'system of justice' that this is even conceivable, but it is also to me kinda funny...
That’s quite the scenario you’ve laid out—funny in the abstract but also deeply troubling when you think about how easily someone could exploit a system like that. It’s also a stark reminder of how the 13th Amendment was crafted with a loophole that allowed forced labor to persist through incarceration.
I spent a few years doing staff development for teachers in all the NYS juvenile facilities. That was an eye-opener. So many kids that never really had an education. We ended up teaching teachers and students how to publish using print-on-demand tech. Had incarerated youth publishing books they could read with their own kids. More on the publishing tech here https://www.edteck.com/publish/
History may not precisely repeat, but it certainly does echo itself.
Wow. Thank you for this.
Brilliant photo essay of the way it was in the not-good old days.
Thanks - so many great images to choose from.
Yes. I have an unpublished anonymous photo taken of my great grandmother and her children in a coal mining town. I have no details except that they came from Scotland to work for practically zero.
From Project 2025, Page 595:
Page 595 of Project 2025
“Hazard-Order Regulations. Some young adults show an interest in inherently dangerous jobs. Current rules forbid many young people, even if their family is running the business, from working in such jobs. This results in worker shortages in dangerous fields and often discourages otherwise interested young workers from trying the more dangerous job. With parental consent and proper training, certain young adults should be allowed to learn and work in more dangerous occupations. This would give a green light to training programs and build skills in teenagers who may want to work in these fields.
• DOL should amend its hazard-order regulations to permit teenage workers access to work in regulated jobs with proper training and parental consent.”
"Mommy and Daddy need the money. So you will go and work at the <insert hazardous> plant."
Daddy: "Good. Now we will have the money to buy more Trump grift."
You’re so right—this really does feel more like a blueprint for exploitation than empowerment. Framing hazardous jobs as ‘opportunities’ with parental consent just feels like a thinly veiled excuse to put profits over kids’ safety. At this rate, maybe they’ll argue teenagers should be allowed to drink and smoke with a parental note too—because, you know, ‘building life skills.’
If this <expelited deleted> comes to pass, I would hope these kids will be aware that it was Trump and Maga Republicans that put them to work. And vote in future not to put their kids to work. But it will require them being outside of their information bubble to realize that.
I doubt they'll ever figure that out, nor make the association. They'll blame the Ds. It's easier.
Excellent work again, Peter. Thank you.
Interesting to me that the current crop of republican cabinet-selects, and a large portion of other electeds, are stuck mentally & emotionally in the pre-adolescent phase of human development...indeed, one could infer they are trying to drag everyone else's spawn down to their level.
Thank you for the kind words! And you’re not wrong—it does feel like we’re watching a masterclass in arrested development. The real tragedy is how their policies aim to make sure the next generation stays stuck there too.
Parental rights should be a loser of an argument when balanced against the interest of the state in protecting child welfare, even if only to ensure that the child grows up to be a productive and healthy adult. In today’s environment, though, who knows?
Here’s another reason that parental rights is a loser of an argument. If the parent may choose to send their 9 year old to pull all-nighters cleaning the meat-packing plant, may they also choose to offer their 9 year old’s hand in marriage to a 40 year old man? May they choose to offer their 9 year old to his or her own relative to “marry”?
How far do they want to take this? Any chance that the sudden push for states’ rights on child labor (slavery) is related to the push for more births and less bodily autonomy for females?
This shit is making me sick.
You’re absolutely right—it’s appalling how far this ‘parental rights’ argument could be stretched. Allowing parents to exploit their kids in the name of rights completely ignores the state’s role in protecting child welfare. And yes, when you pair it with the attacks on bodily autonomy, it’s hard not to see a broader, deeply disturbing agenda. This trend should make all of us sick
And it does…
It figures that the fascists behind project 2025 would move from exploiting and deporting immigrant labor onto exploiting and abusing children as replacements for those immigrants. The word "evil" doesn't fully describe the depths of inhumanity to which Trump and his greedy cult minions will sink.
It’s horrifying, but sadly not surprising. This kind of exploitation feels like a modern twist on the worst abuses of history—using the most vulnerable as pawns for profit. The cruelty behind these policies is staggering, and it’s a stark reminder of what unchecked greed and power can do.
Pictures of eight and ten year olds working is chilling, but I have been wondering for a while about the loads of “unaccompanied minors” that were crossing the border in the recent past. In particular the 15-17 year olds. Who feeds them? Who would act as a parent to keep them out of hazardous jobs? I suspect that without knowing English, most of them are not enrolling themselves in school. They seem like a very vulnerable group. Does anyone keep track of these older teens?
“You’re absolutely right, Alice—unaccompanied minors are incredibly vulnerable, especially those 15-17 years old. Without a support system or someone to act as their advocate, many end up working in dangerous industries like meatpacking or agriculture instead of going to school. Their lack of English and legal protections makes it even harder for them to avoid exploitation. The Department of Labor does try to enforce child labor laws, but enforcement is often spotty. We can assume new incoming administration won’t cure this problem.
Oh, god, does this mean Baron will be forced to work in a corner office?
Can't imagine being that kid.