Before OSHA. Before workers' comp. Before anyone even pretended to care about child labor—America’s workforce bled in the shadows of smokestacks and mine shafts. In this episode, we walk through some of the darkest chapters in U.S. labor history: the factory fires, crushed limbs, child coffins, and lives shattered in the name of profit. These aren’t cautionary tales—they’re the reason regulations exist. Part 1 focuses on the human toll of a system that valued production over people.
Further Reading:
Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States. Harper Perennial, 2005.
Dreiser, Theodore. Sister Carrie. Doubleday, 1900. (Fictional but captures the era’s labor context.)
Freedman, Russell. Kids at Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade Against Child Labor. Clarion Books, 1994.
Grossman, Jonathan. “The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire: March 25, 1911.” U.S. Department of Labor (DOL.gov), 1971.
Levinson, Marc. The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger. Princeton University Press, 2006. (For context on industrial expansion.)
Trattner, Walter I. Crusade for the Children: A History of the National Child Labor Committee and Child Labor Reform in America. Quadrangle Books, 1970.
National Archives. “Child Labor in America 1908–1912: Photographs by Lewis Hine.” https://www.archives.gov
