Toys These Children Will nNever Play With
Hine captured photographs of two tenement families working for the same company, the Aetna Doll and Toy Company, producing dolls other children will play with. On the left, the Romana family produces dresses for the Campbell Kids dolls in their Thompson Street tenement in New York. The twelve-year-old son and his mother take turns on the sewing machine. When his mother uses the machine, he tends the younger children, five and seven, tending them or helping break threads on the dresses. In a nearby tenement, the Cattena family (seen on the right) works together to produce the Campbell Kids doll leg. Hine’s notes indicate the children, Rose (14), Lena (12 and suffering a physical impairment), and Nettie (9) work after school until about 10 PM. They are joined in the image by Tessie, on the far right, who usually produces the doll parts at her own home downstairs.