Friday, April 5, 2024

Children's lives

 


#1

1913 - An adult aunt and children 5 years, 6 years, 7 years, 9 years and 11 &12 picking cotton on H.M. Lane's farm, Bells, Tex. Lewis Hine Photo



#2

1908 children in Galveston TX in back of what I think is Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Galveston TX. These would have been my uncles Elmore and baby Alex, who weren't Catholics.


#3

A smile on the face of this young one, not dated, nor identified as to place. But besides the necessities of life that surround her, I notice the touch of the window curtains made by her mother and a pair of scissors - a scalloped edge to that newspaper.





#4

Though this young lady sat still, the kittens had other ideas.


#5

Wouldn't you like to give this portrait of a family a caption?


#6

There's nothing more freeing for a child than a set of tricycle wheels!

#7

#8

Photo by Solomon D. Butcher - in Nebraska

#9

Gypsy Camp 28th July 1951. Gypsy children play happily in overcrowded encampment at Corke's Meadow, Kent, UK. Photo by Bert Hardy.

#10

By famed photographer L.W. Hine while traveling through the South, 1909 TN or NC.  "Recently widowed family."
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Freedom Monument Sculpture Park.  @ 10 million Black people had been enslaved in the U.S by 1865. Close to six million of those people died as enslaved people—and @ half of all enslaved children died before their first birthday.
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My personal comments:
From what I've read in research, and known from friends, all the family had chores to do, whether picking cotton or dusting the house, or helping feed the younger children, or helping with animals or crops. The children of today don't know what the generations before them did.

Many children would die from diseases or accidents. For instance one of my uncles pictured above died as an adult from a disease, while his older brother accidentally drowned as a youth.

Family planning, where a woman could choose when she wanted to (or didn't want to) have another child, has only been available widely in the more affluent western societies since the 1960s. The rhythm method was taught to women for many years before that so they could possibly control their own pregnancies. An unwanted pregnancy could be legally aborted since the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe V Wade in the US. Recent revocation of the Roe v Wade by the new Supreme Court decision means those women who become pregnant no longer have access to safe abortions if they wish to terminate a pregnancy in a lot of the United States. The laws are currently made by states, and are so stringent in some that anyone who helps a woman travel to get an abortion is also liable for jail and fines.

Children's play was much more unrestricted prior to when? the 1970s? the 1990?  the 2000's?  At some point a litigious society in the US made it such that no children were left playing alone on playgrounds, nor were the playgrounds just cobbled together with spare lumber and pipes. Children had to be protected at all times. And unfortunately there were those who preyed upon the innocent, which made this protective attitude necessary. And accidentally broken bones, which always seemed part of childhood play, were suddenly to be avoided at all cost.

But parents are hardy souls and keep coming up with safe and enjoyable pursuits for their offspring. My old generation has somehow survived all the pitfalls of see-saws, ocean-swing-arounds, swings and slides, and plenty of chances to skin knees. What, climbing trees? You bet!

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Sharing with Sepia Saturday
My topic on children is not exactly on the topic of Two-somes. But Sepia Saturday seems willing to look aside when we post other topics. Thanks, Alan! PS, I couldn't separate these two weeks apart in the suggested themes. Perhaps I'll find some brides or dancers for next week...




Today's quote:

Beauty is the purgation of superfluities. 
-Michelangelo Buonarroti, sculptor, painter, architect, and poet (1475-1564)  Only Michelangelo could say that, who chipped away at marble to find the figures he wanted.


20 comments:

  1. Great sepia series ! I always remember playing outside as a child, they were fun times.
    Take care, have a great day and happy weekend.

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    1. True enough, being outside let our mothers have a break. Heaven help us when it was a rainy day!

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  2. ...our grandchildren today have a charmed life.

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  3. Interesting photos. So often we hear people remember their childhood fondly, protected by their parents even through the worst of economic times. Reality is often much harsher than memory.

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    1. There sure have been as many families as ever who have suffered from poverty. Sorry I didn't give credit to those parents!

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  4. Hi Barbara, I still remember leaving the house to play in the wooded lot about 3 miles from our house where we built forts and played all day...with a break to grab something to eat at a neighbors house. The only rules were to be home for dinner and after dinner to be in the house before dark. I was in the first grade. Most kids today don't have a chance to just play. Everything is organized and usually competitive. Despite the oversights today, one of our grandsons did manage to break an arm falling out of a tree! I can't imagine what life was like for most of the people in your sepia photos...especially the newly widowed woman with 9 children! I do have notes from my mother that she wrote about her early life when the family had nothing and it wasn't easy living. Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

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    1. Yes life does throw very cruel curves at families, in one way or another.

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  5. Oh my goodness, where to start? What a wonderful conglomeration of photos. The kitchen (I think?) wallpapered and curtained with newspaper. That cute girl trying to hold still for her photograph with the kittens climbing all over her! The family portrait where you invited us to come up with a caption? I wouldn't even know where to begin! :) The happy kids riding their trikes. I loved riding my trike up and down the block! The two gypsy children finding fun in a crowded camp. And all those large families. Those poor women. Whew. Especially the one left alone with 9 children to raise by herself. Perhaps she married again, but I hope she didn't have to have any more children? And I have never understood how people could think "owning" other people could possibly be right, especially those proclaiming to be Christians!

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    1. Thank you Gail, for your comments on all these photos! I kind of think second marriages were always the only/best answer to young widows.

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  6. The photo for Kent UK was probably taken during the hop harvest (hops being an essential ingredient for brewing beer). The Romani and Traveller peoples moved around the country to wherever there was work - and very welcome they were when so much of the work was done by hand. Corke's Meadow would have been one of their regular Atchin Tans, or stopping places. Working class people from London also would travel down to work in the hop fields and I believe my mother went down there one year with her family, though at the time she was just a baby. You can hear a song about the work here:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJnzhQyOSYc

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    1. Thanks so very much John, for all the additional information about the Romani. I've read somewhere about the hops harvesting, but didn't know they participated. It's quite similar to our immigrant crop pickers that move from one harvest to another. Florida and California depend upon them to bring our food to our tables, though many conservative Americans prefer to think the strawberries just jump into those little containers.

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  7. Such hardship for even the youngest.

    Susan

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    1. I don't think many children who were loved and cared-for felt they had hardship. When they no longer had a father, or they had to leave their home due to some crisis, then they felt they had hardship. It's one of those things in the experience of the person him/herself, while others looking from outside would see hardship. And it's especially difficult for us to see their own lives from the perspective of many years later.

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  8. From Scotsue - what a fascinating collection of striking images, that tell us so much of what life was like for so many people. - the primitive house with newspapers on the walls and a newspaper blind; the wives and mothers with such large families - what must their life have been like ? The children outside with bare feet. The happiest photograph was the one of the wee cyclists - but no safety helmets in those days. I enjoyed reading your personal comments too. An excellent post. Thank you.

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    1. Thanks for commenting on what you saw in these photos also. It does make one think of how they must have found happiness in their lives.

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  9. In a historical context our own modern life with all its conveniences is really such an astonishing short period... Hard to grasp! And even the gap between my own childhood and now is beginning to feel quite big. Living in a village from 5 y.o. and up I had quite a lot of freedom to play outdoors unsupervised.

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    1. It's pretty amazing that so many changes have happened to women's lives in the last century. I think they were most affected by the new appliances available in the kitchen and laundry. How children played has certainly changed also. As I was raised in an urban environment, I love learning about children who could play outdoors unsupervised.

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  10. Such a moving selection of photos, as well as your commentary. What strikes me in these pictures is that many of the children seem happy — there are one or two smiling even in the more serious group photos — speaking to the resilience of children even in the most dire situations, but also the need to keep them out of such situations so they can actually have a childhood.

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  11. Thank you, Barbara. This was a particularly poignant set of images to share. I agree that most children, in the US anyway, don't know how hard life was for their ancestors. However many Americans are blind to the poverty and hardship endured by millions of families in our time who live in other parts of the world where photographers could easily take similar photos today.

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There is today, more than ever, the need for a compassionate regenerative world civilization.