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Program Centers on "The Cry of the Children," A 1912 Controversial Film

The film “The Cry of the Children” caused controversy when it was released in 1912. Depicting the hardships of child textile workers, the silent film included real footage of children working in mills. Edwin Thanhouser produced the film to draw attention to the exploitation of child labor.

See “The Cry of the Children” at the N.C. Museum of History in Raleigh on Sunday, May 15, at 2 p.m. After the film, David Zonderman, Professor of History at N.C. State University, will lead a discussion about the film and child labor. Zonderman specializes in American labor history. Admission is free.

As the political power of film began to emerge, “The Cry of the Children” helped lead to social reform. The film is presented in three settings. The first scene shows the dangerous working conditions that children faced in a textile mill. The second scene centers on a factory worker’s run-down home and the poverty-stricken lifestyle of the working class. In sharp contrast, the third scene goes inside a millowner’s opulent home and focuses on the arrogance of the wealthy aristocracy who exploited millworkers.

The film’s title is adapted from Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s 1843 social protest poem “The Cry of the Children.”The poem contributed to labor reform in the mines of England.

The May 15 program complements the exhibit The Photography of Lewis Hine: Exposing Child Labor in North Carolina, 1908-1918. Hine, staff photographer for the National Child Labor Committee, documented the horrible working conditions of child laborers in North Carolina’s textile mills in the early 1900s. Most of these young workers labored 10 to 12 hours, six days a week, in mills in Cabarrus, Gaston, Lincoln, Rowan and other Tar Heel counties.

For more information about these programs, call 919-807-7900 or access ncmuseumofhistory.org or Facebook.The museum is located at 5 E. Edenton Street, across from the State Capitol. Parking is available in the lot across Wilmington Street.

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The N.C. Museum of History is located at 5 E. Edenton St. Hours are Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. The Museum of History, within the Division of State History Museums, is part of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, the state agency with the mission to enrich lives and communities, and the vision to harness the state’s cultural resources to build North Carolina’s social, cultural and economic future. Information is available 24/7 at www.ncculture.com.