LGM Film Club, Part 88: Children Who Labor

Since I’ve been talking about child labor again thanks to the Supreme Court case and Neil Kaytal’s immoral life choices, it’s worth making tonight’s film Children Who Labor, from 1912. This film, created by the National Child Labor Committee, is a melodrama showing the horrors of child labor, the indifference of the capitalist class, and urging a system that allows men to support their families through well-paying work instead of the universal poverty created by child labor. The story itself is completely ridiculous. One of the things you will notice, even though it was so ubiquitous at the time that no one likely took any note at all, is that even a liberal film like this can’t help but using blackface. Sigh. Also, there’s no sound on this version so just use whatever you have on as your soundtrack.