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Photos Expose Child Labor In Tampa

Photo by Lewis Hine from the U.S. Library of Congress

he photographer's rich caption information identified them as the Bellenti brothers: Crosoria, 10, Joe, 9, Sam, 7, and Tony, 4.

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By GARY R. MORMINO, Tribune correspondent

Published: October 21, 2007

Updated: 12/08/2007 05:52 pm

Follow Up: 'Everyone Turns Out To Be Something'

Nearly a century ago, a photographer came to Tampa bent upon exposing the use of children as laborers. Hundreds of the city's youngest residents worked as newsboys, ragpickers and cigarmakers.

Lewis Hine's documentation of young children at work on the streets and in factories across the country succeeded in appalling America's middle class. The photographer's work aided the Progressive Movement, a national reform effort to address the social and economic dislocation wrought by industrialization and immigration.

Images of the Progressive Era, 1900-1915, typically conjure up social reformers such as Jane Addams and Mother Cabrini uplifting immigrants in Chicago and New York City.

But Tampa also experienced the rush and tumult of industrial change. It grew from 'a sleepy, shabby Southern town' in 1882, as observed by naturalist Kirk Munroe, to a city of 40,000 in 1910. The Cigar City boasted the greatest concentration of skilled labor in Florida.

But progress came with grievous costs.

Problem Documented

In 1906, the National Child Labor Committee commissioned Hine to document the alarming problem of children as young as 3 toiling long hours sorting nuts, rolling cigarettes, sewing dolls' clothing and making brushes.

In Tampa, with its 200 or so cigar factories, the main occupation for children was rolling stogies, while outside, many of their peers hawked newspapers. From 1909 to 1913, Hine came to Tampa three times with his camera and glass negatives.

The photographs are simultaneously beautiful and haunting. The Library of Congress has 34 of the Tampa portraits. Readers can view and download them for free. Go to lcweb2.loc.gov/pp/nclcquery.html, type 'Tampa' into the search box and click.

From the young newsboys and cigar rollers to messengers delivering telegrams, children pervaded the city's early 20th century work force. Despite the efforts of truant officers to return youngsters to school, the problem persisted.

No ethnic group exasperated civic officials more than Sicilians. For centuries, these Italians had survived grinding poverty because of a family economy that put children to work. Because Sicilian immigrant men earned meager wages, family survival depended upon the labor of women and children. When officials for the U.S. Immigration Commission toured Tampa in 1910, they reported, 'Children of 6, 7 and 8 years are taught the trade' of cigar rolling.

'I never saw a paycheck until I got married,' ex-cigarmaker Louis Spoto of Tampa said during a 1980 interview.

'I used to shine shoes as a kid,' said Joe Maniscalco, a cigarmaker who owned a small factory. 'I used to walk down to the old courthouse about 5:30 in the morning and come back at midnight. Making $4 or $5 shining shoes, and the money I make, I take it home so it could take care of the family.'

Searching For Newsboys

The Hine photographs attracted the attention of Joe and Carole Manning. A New Englander, Joe Manning has worked as a social worker, historian and author. Lately, he has dedicated his life to finding the names and stories behind the portraits. He has had some success identifying children and discovering what became of them (go to morningsonmaplestreet.com/lewishine.html) and hopes to compile the tales in a book.

The detective story has taken the Mannings along twisted roads. They discovered that one 5-year-old, after being arrested for robbery, was sent to St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys, a reformatory and orphanage in Baltimore (and alma mater of baseball's Babe Ruth). His son became a professor and was nominated for a Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Now the Mannings want to learn the fate of a Tampa boy. Hine took his picture in March 1913 and described him as 'one of America's youngest newsboys' in the caption. He notes the boy, who has a large sore on his leg, is 4 years old.

Interestingly, another Hine photo, taken that same month in Tampa, shows three boys about 8 to 10 years old described as brothers in Hine's caption. He says the boys are part of the 'Bellenti family,' and there are actually four brothers, the youngest of whom is 4-year-old Tony. All four work from 6 a.m. till late at night selling newspapers. They live on Garcia Avenue and speak little English.

A search of the Tampa city directory for 1913 finds no Bellentis on Garcia, but it does show Anna and Antonio Valente, bakers who lived at 1223 Garcia Ave. Given the language barrier, Valente could have become Bellenti to Hine's ears.

Could the unidentified child in the first photo be Tony Valente?

Anyone who can help solve the mystery is invited to contact Joe or Carole Manning at (413) 584-0679 or e-mail manningfamily@rcn.com.

Rodney Kite Powell of the Tampa Bay History Center and Paul Camp of the University of South Florida's Special Collections contributed to this article. As a child in Wood River, Ill., Gary R. Mormino delivered the Alton (Ill.) Evening Telegraph and St. Lou

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