 |
Of Interest |
 |
|
|
This postage stamp bears a picture of a little girl
identified as Addie Laird. It was
taken by the noted photographer of child labor conditions, Louis Wickes Hine.
The title of the original photograph is Anemic Little Spinner in North
Pownal Cotton Mill, North Pownal, Vermont, August 1910. The accompanying
caption, from the records of the National Child Labor Committee, reads:
Addie Laird, 12 years, spinner in North Pownal cotton mill, North
Pownal, Vermont. Girls in mill say she is ten years. She admitted to me she was
twelve; that she started during school vacation and now would "stay".
-witness E.F. Brown.
The U.S. Postal Service issued this first stamp to commemorate Child
Labor Reform in 1998; it was unveiled in January of that year by Secretary of
Labor Alexis M. Herman. The Postal Service presented the DOL Library with a
framed enlargement of the stamp in acknowledgment of the Library's
participation in the unveiling ceremonies with exhibits and bibliographies on
child labor. It remains on permanent display in the Library.
For more background on Addie, go to http://www.elizabethwinthrop.com/searchforaddie.html.
| 
