A photograph of breaker boys at Pittston, Pennsylvania

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A photograph of breaker boys at Pittston, Pennsylvania

Photographer Lewis W. Hine took this photograph of a group of boys at Pittston, Pennsylvania on a cold Sunday in January 1911. Hines was working on behalf of the National Child Labor Committee investigating the mining industry and its use of underage workers. Labor laws existed limiting the employment of children as mineworkers at the time, but were easily avoided by both mine management and families of the children employed at the mines. The yo…