Children Wanted Broadside, Bates Mill, Lewiston, Maine, 1861-1865. Courtesy of the Museum L-A.
Children Wanted Broadside, Bates Mill, Lewiston, Maine, 1861-1865. Courtesy of the Museum L-A.
At the time of the Civil War (1861-1865), many young children worked in textile mills. As demonstrated in this recruitment poster, the Bates Mill needed children to meet war-time demands for tent cloth.
As late as 1900, this attitude of accepting the need for child labor hadn't changed. In that year the annual report from the Maine Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics stated: "child labor...is here to stay. Neither parent nor mill owner is entirely to blame...'Children will eat, and children must work,' and the mill owner must employ enough cheap labor to lessen his cost of production sufficiently to enable him to sell his goods at a profit."