"The Christmas Spirit reaches some Transient Flats children after Christmas via the city dump." From the California State Archives collection of Great Depression photographs at LearnCalifornia.org

I've always been haunted by that part in To Kill a Mockingbird when Scout mentions that the only time she ever saw where the Ewells lived was when they brought their Christmas tree out to the town dump. 

 

Previous Week's Urchin

Nearly all of these urchins were discovered in the photography archives of the Library of Congress (and available without copyright restrictions online). Otherwise, urchin photos will be credited to the appropriate photographer with a link to its source (unless they come from my own collection of photographs from unknown photographers). If there is ever a copyright concern, do not hesitate to contact me.

 

See Also: Merry Christmas, Little Urchins (2010)

[Detroit, 1920s; Originals in the Walter P. Reuther Library's collections, via the Virtual Motor City Project]

 

Previous Week's Urchins

 

Nearly all of these urchins were discovered in the photography archives of the Library of Congress (and available without copyright restrictions online). Otherwise, urchin photos will be credited to the appropriate photographer with a link to its source (unless they come from my own collection of photographs from unknown photographers). If there is ever a copyright concern, do not hesitate to contact me.

Supposedly this was a big event in downtown Detroit when Santa arrived not by sleigh, but by some newfangled invention called an "aeroplane." What's up with the kid's nose in the front, second from the right. Is he supposed to be Rudolph?

 

Previous Week's Urchins

 

Nearly all of these urchins were discovered in the photography archives of the Library of Congress (and available without copyright restrictions online). Otherwise, urchin photos will be credited to the appropriate photographer with a link to its source (unless they come from my own collection of photographs from unknown photographers). If there is ever a copyright concern, do not hesitate to contact me.

Photograph by Dan McCoy, EPA Documerica Project, National Archives.

 

Previous Week's Urchins

Nearly all of these urchins were discovered in the photography archives of the Library of Congress (and available without copyright restrictions online). Otherwise, urchin photos will be credited to the appropriate photographer with a link to its source (unless they come from my own collection of photographs from unknown photographers). If there is ever a copyright concern, do not hesitate to contact me.

Photographer unknown.

Previous Week's Urchins

 

Nearly all of these urchins were discovered in the photography archives of the Library of Congress (and available without copyright restrictions online). Otherwise, urchin photos will be credited to the appropriate photographer with a link to its source (unless they come from my own collection of photographs from unknown photographers). If there is ever a copyright concern, do not hesitate to contact me.

Photographer: H. Armstrong Roberts, 1936

Photographer: Russell Lee, 1939 (Bradford, Vermont)

 

Previous Week's Urchins 

Nearly all of these urchins were discovered in the photography archives of the Library of Congress (and available without copyright restrictions online). Otherwise, urchin photos will be credited to the appropriate photographer with a link to its source (unless they come from my own collection of photographs from unknown photographers). If there is ever a copyright concern, do not hesitate to contact me.

 

Previous Week's Urchins

 

Nearly all of these urchins were discovered in the photography archives of the Library of Congress (and available without copyright restrictions online). Otherwise, urchin photos will be credited to the appropriate photographer with a link to its source (unless they come from my own collection of photographs from unknown photographers). If there is ever a copyright concern, do not hesitate to contact me.

Halloween is right around the corner. Are you ready?

[I've got some spectacularly-spooky urchin Halloween pictures to share over the next week or so, so stay tuned] 

 

Previous Week's Urchins

 

Nearly all of these urchins were discovered in the photography archives of the Library of Congress (and available without copyright restrictions online). Otherwise, urchin photos will be credited to the appropriate photographer with a link to its source (unless they come from my own collection of photographs from unknown photographers). If there is ever a copyright concern, do not hesitate to contact me.

These urchins were found by photographer Lewis Hine in an alley behind a "moving picture theater" on First Street in Troy, New York. According to Hine, all of them were hanging around the stage entrance at 10:30 p.m. and peeking in to see the movie on the screen. The kid on the right said he was 5-years old, so the others must have been considerably younger.

I have no doubt that Charlie Chaplin or Fatty Arbuckle would approve.

 

Previous Week's Urchins

 

Nearly all of these urchins were discovered in the photography archives of the Library of Congress (and available without copyright restrictions online). Otherwise, urchin photos will be credited to the appropriate photographer with a link to its source (unless they come from my own collection of photographs from unknown photographers). If there is ever a copyright concern, do not hesitate to contact me.

Sure you might think disposable diapers have made parenting easy and convenient, but I miss the days when you could just let the kids out on the stoop and watch your neighbors get into drunken brawls while leaning against the grate on the front window. Forget violin lessons and soccer practice: all you had to do was chill and wait for your eyebrows to meet in the middle.

 

Previous Week's Urchins

 

Nearly all of these urchins were discovered in the photography archives of the Library of Congress (and available without copyright restrictions online). Otherwise, urchin photos will be credited to the appropriate photographer with a link to its source (unless they come from my own collection of photographs from unknown photographers). If there is ever a copyright concern, do not hesitate to contact me.

From the totally weird Portraits and posed situations, ca. 1900-1910 collection at the Library of Congress.

 

Previous Week's Urchins

 

Nearly all of these urchins were discovered in the photography archives of the Library of Congress (and available without copyright restrictions online). Otherwise, urchin photos will be credited to the appropriate photographer with a link to its source (unless they come from my own collection of photographs from unknown photographers). If there is ever a copyright concern, do not hesitate to contact me.

"Children escape the heat of the East Side by using fire hydrant as a shower bath." Roger Smith, Photographer.

 

Previous Week's Urchin

 

Nearly all of these urchins were discovered in the photography archives of the Library of Congress (and available without copyright restrictions online). Otherwise, urchin photos will be credited to the appropriate photographer with a link to its source (unless they come from my own collection of photographs from unknown photographers). If there is ever a copyright concern, do not hesitate to contact me.

This is little Laura Petty, a 6 year old berry picker on Jenkins farm, Rock Creek near Baltimore, Maryland. She told the photographer (Lewis Hine): "I'm just beginnin'. Picked two boxes yesterday. (2 cents a box)." July 8, 1909 (Baltimore, Maryland).

 

Previous Week's Urchin

 

Nearly all of these urchins were discovered in the photography archives of the Library of Congress (and available without copyright restrictions online). Otherwise, urchin photos will be credited to the appropriate photographer with a link to its source (unless they come from my own collection of photographs from unknown photographers). If there is ever a copyright concern, do not hesitate to contact me.

These farming urchins were spotted in New York City on First Avenue between Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth Streets in 1944 by photographer Edward Meyer. Their school was sponsoring a victory garden. Here is what the spot looks like today.

These two urchins were picking radishes at the Fairlawn Avenue Victory gardens in Washington, D.C. (photographer Joseph A. Horne, 1943):

 

Previous Week's Urchins

 

Nearly all of these urchins were discovered in the photography archives of the Library of Congress (and available without copyright restrictions online). Otherwise, urchin photos will be credited to the appropriate photographer with a link to its source (unless they come from my own collection of photographs from unknown photographers). If there is ever a copyright concern, do not hesitate to contact me.

This photo was taken on a farm near McKinney, Texas in October, 1913. From Mr. Hine's notes: "Part of a group of itinerant cotton pickers leaving a farm at which they had finished picking a bale and a half a day. They live in these wagons. Note how many children - all pick except the baby in arms. The four year old picks fifteen pounds a day regularly. Seven year old boy picks fifty pounds a day."

 

Previous Week's Urchins

 

Nearly all of these urchins were discovered in the photography archives of the Library of Congress (and available without copyright restrictions online). Otherwise, urchin photos will be credited to the appropriate photographer with a link to its source (unless they come from my own collection of photographs from unknown photographers). If there is ever a copyright concern, do not hesitate to contact me.

Saw these happy urchins in Weestraw's scans of the beautiful book, The Heartland. Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin. Published by Time Life Books, 1967.

 

Previous Week's Urchins

 

Nearly all of these urchins were discovered in the photography archives of the Library of Congress (and available without copyright restrictions online). Otherwise, urchin photos will be credited to the appropriate photographer with a link to its source (unless they come from my own collection of photographs from unknown photographers). If there is ever a copyright concern, do not hesitate to contact me.

Actually, forget the urchins this week. Check out that sweet playground equipment. Imagine how much fun that slide was after a twelve hour shift at the oyster cannery.

Photos from the Detroit Publishing Co. collection at the Library of Congress.

 

Previous Week's Urchins

 

Nearly all of these urchins were discovered in the photography archives of the Library of Congress (and available without copyright restrictions online). Otherwise, urchin photos will be credited to the appropriate photographer with a link to its source (unless they come from my own collection of photographs from unknown photographers). If there is ever a copyright concern, do not hesitate to contact me.

According to the photographer, Lewis Hine: "Group of boys working in Great Falls Mfg. Co., Somersworth, N.H. 6 p.m. May 18, 1909. Smallest boy is Alfred Ouellet, 212 Main Street. Fat boy is Willie Laudry, 35 South Street. Boy on left hand end is Napoleon St. Lawrence, 23 Union Street." 

I think by "fat boy" Hine means the kid on the far left, who would hardly be fat by today's standards. It is a reminder of just how skinny most of these street kids and child laborers were. 

 

Previous Week's Urchin

 

Nearly all of these urchins were discovered in the photography archives of the Library of Congress (and available without copyright restrictions online). Otherwise, urchin photos will be credited to the appropriate photographer with a link to its source (unless they come from my own collection of photographs from unknown photographers). If there is ever a copyright concern, do not hesitate to contact me.

Robert Adams, likely taken 1970-74 (image via Yale University Art Gallery).

 

Previous Week's Urchin

 

Nearly all of these urchins were discovered in the photography archives of the Library of Congress (and available without copyright restrictions online). Otherwise, urchin photos will be credited to the appropriate photographer with a link to its source (unless they come from my own collection of photographs from unknown photographers). If there is ever a copyright concern, do not hesitate to contact me.

This is from that incredible collection of tourist photographs of Russia that went viral last week. These were taken by American tourist Murray Howe in 1909, posted to flickr in 2011 by his great grandson Andrew Howe V of Atlantic Beach, Florida. These images almost have the feeling of Lewis Hine in Czarist Russia (with all the documentation of street people and child vendors) but in this case rather than backdrops of the burgeoning American capitalist juggernaut, you see the empty grandeur of Imperial Russia. Is it any wonder what happened eight years later?

 

Previous Week's Urchins

 

Nearly all of these urchins were discovered in the photography archives of the Library of Congress (and available without copyright restrictions online). Otherwise, urchin photos will be credited to the appropriate photographer with a link to its source (unless they come from my own collection of photographs from unknown photographers). If there is ever a copyright concern, do not hesitate to contact me.