Tony Soccha, employee at Dwight Manufacturing Company in Chicopee, Mass, in November 1911. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, National Child Labor Committee Collection.
The scene in 2014:
This young man was identified by photographer Lewis Hine as Tony Soccha, and he gave the following information about him in the caption:
Joseph Maslak, employee at Dwight Manufacturing Company in Chicopee, Mass, in November 1911. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, National Child Labor Committee Collection.
The scene in 2014:
Taken at the same spot as Joseph Polchlopek, this photo shows a boy named Joseph Maslak, with the following information provided by photographer Lewis Hine:
Joseph Polchlopek, employee at Dwight Manufacturing Company in Chicopee, Mass, in November 1911. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, National Child Labor Committee Collection.
The scene in 2014:
Lewis Hine provides the following information about this young man, working at the Dwight Manufacturing Company in Chicopee, Mass:
Employees of the Dwight Manufacturing Company in Chicopee, Mass, in November 1911. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, National Child Labor Committee Collection.
In 2014:
Another photo from Lewis Hine’s documentation of child labor issues in the early 1900s, this one shows a group of young workers at Dwight Manufacturing Company in Chicopee, Mass. Hine writes this in his caption:
Employees of the Dwight Manufacturing Company in Chicopee, Mass, in November 1911. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, National Child Labor Committee Collection.
In 2014:
Taken in the same area as this photo, this photo shows a group of workers at Dwight Manufacturing Company in Chicopee, in November, 1911. Photographing for the National Child Labor Committee, Lewis Hines writes this about the boy in the foreground:
Employees of the Dwight Manufacturing Company in Chicopee, Mass, in November 1911. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, National Child Labor Committee Collection.
The same scene in 2014:
This photo was one of many taken in Chicopee by noted photographer Lewis Hine, during his travels across the United States documenting child labor issues. Photographing for the National Child Labor Committee, his photographs are now available through the Library of Congress, so I decided to try to re-create some of his Chicopee photos.
This one is probably my favorite, because the scene can be re-created so perfectly; the brick walls, the “1894” on the granite pillar, and even the wrought iron gates are still there. At the time that the photographs were taken, the factory belonged to the Dwight Manufacturing Company; it was part of a sprawling complex of factories and boarding houses along the Chicopee River, and many of the buildings still exist today, including the main entrance, which is surprisingly unchanged over 100 years later.
Hine identified the young man on the left as Stanislaus Fabara, writing this as the caption of the photo: