Vintage work crew photos

[hemmjo]

How old do you figure those kids are? I am guessing 11-12 and up

[IntheGroove]

I would bet some of them fought in WW1...

[skibo]

I feel bad for these young kids, on their way to black lung and all all else that's bad in mines. I can't help of visualizing today's younger boys 16 and 24 year old's doing this type of work! They love theor work in their coffee shops! What with their Twat-knot buns on the back of their heads, along with their sissy looking skinny jeans and the little low cut narrow sneaky shoes! That looks so manly like. Not that I would ever have liked doing mining work but if that was all I could have found, well, yes I'd be there till until something else better and safer came along, Like working in the woods cutting down trees. I have done choker setting before and it was a ****ty job, made good money in the mid sixties, in the State of Washington and steep mountains and snow, it sucked!

[marksbug]

I see 1 smile.can you spot smiley bob? I worked on a garbage truck as a kid as well as cutting grass. both sucked, and neither paid what it does now days.( late 60's early 70's)

[hemmjo]

He is happy he made it out of the darkness..

[the harmonious blacksmith]

Child labor, but many of those boys seem to look happy.

[Hoosiersmoker]

I was raised understanding that if you want something, you have to work for it so when I was 12 and my parents tried to hand-me-down a bike for the third time and I wanted a new one, I spent the summer working for Pioneer de-tasseling corn. 8 hrs a day, 5 days a week for $5 an hour which was a lot of money then! In a week I bought the new bike and then spent a lot of money on cool modifications from the local bike shop which I rode to myself. It had a generator and front and back lights as well as an actual "D" shaped steering wheel which I disassembled to add the hand brakes. Had a custom seat and changed out the derailleur when I started having problems with it.

When trying to overcome the liberal, entitlement-based education system with my kids, I showed them my Social Security statement showing my first work date and told them when I was born and to do the math to get to the age I started working.

[Jon]

Artillery shell workers at Kokura Arsenal. Fukuoka, Japan, 1943.

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[Toolmaker51]

I would bet some of them fought in WW1...

With guesses at 10-12 years old, some even less. marksbug asks which is Smiley Bob, closest might be back row about 1/4 of the row from left.
A few thin-lipped smiles according to eyes, and some say just forlorn, miserable, desperate.

All the same, safe bet the majority served, responding to this,

or this,

maybe this.


Conscription began 1917, May 18th.

[Jon]

Bloom clippers. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation. Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. 1940.

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