Lewis Wickes Hine (1874-1940) photographed St. Louis newsboys in 1910 for the National Child Labor Committee. His efforts are credited with helping change labor law. Find his portraits at the Library of Congress’s  National Child Labor Committee Collection site. 

Joe Manning, a retired social worker and journalist in Massachusetts, is identifying descendants of the newsboys and other child laborers photographed by Hine. Manning describes what he’s doing at his site, Mornings on Maple Street. He’s found names for some children that Hine didn’t identify. And he’s been able to say what became of some of them.  

One of Manning’s discoveries is the identity of a tough-looking newsie named Raymond Klose, one of three smokers in a Hine photo captioned “Newsies at Skeeter’s Branch, Jefferson near Franklin.” In 2010, Manning was contacted by a relative of Raymond’s who helped make the identification; Matthew Hathaway of the Post-Dispatch wrote about the discovery in 2011.

Another look at Manning’s project, as well as a history of Father Dunne’s Newsboy Home and Protectorate (1906-2006), is here: Old Newsboys Day and Fr. Peter Dunne.

The Newsboys’ Home was started by Father Dunne a few months after he witnessed a conductor boot 10-year-old Jimmie Fleming off a street car because the boy was “too ragged.” The priest followed Jimmie and, according to a 1906 account in the Post-Dispatch, “made an appraisement of the little fellow’s worth.” The boy was indeed ragged, but Dunne also said he was a “bright boy and a good one, who wanted only a chance to develop into a useful citizen.” Read more here: Waif Benefactor of Boys Dying, an account of Jimmie at death’s door after a horse stepped on his head.

Reporter Tim O’Neil took a look at Father Dunne in his weekly “A Look Back” column on Feb. 1, 2014. Find it here: Rev. Dunne, former orphan, establishes Newsboys Homes in 1906

 

(Originally published Jan. 11, 2014)