LENOX, Mass. — Join author Chaim Rosenberg and learn how two million American children under 16  - some as young as four or five - at the close of the 19th century were employed on farms, in mills, canneries, factories, mines and offices, or selling newspapers and fruits and vegetables on the streets. 

 

He will speak at Ventfort Hall on Aug. 15 at 4 pm. A tea will follow his presentation.

 

His talk will highlight pictures of child workers in America taken early in the 20th Century by Lewis Hine. Children as young as five years were put to work as newsboys and newsgirls, selling gum, delivering telegraph messengers, working in the mines, making glass bottles, mattresses and clothing, working in the slaughter houses, picking cotton, cutting fish, working in the cotton mills and all manner of work, earning little money to help support the family. 

 

Child labor in America ended in 1938 with the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

 

Rosenberg was born in South Africa, lived in Tel Aviv, London and Sydney before settling a half-century ago in the United States. After a career in Psychiatry, affiliated with Harvard and Boston University medical schools, he turned to the study of American history, writing fifteen books focused largely on the role of the individual in shaping American greatness. 

 

In 2013, he published "Child Labor in America." He wrote a biography of Francis Cabot Lowell, whose 1814 water-powered textile mill was the beginning of America's industrial revolution; and Cyrus Hall McCormick, whose horse-powered harvesting machine revolutionized agriculture worldwide. Rosenberg's other books focus on the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, and the Loyalists in the American Revolutionary War. His book "Yankee Colonies across America" won the 2016 non-fiction prize of the New England Society in the City of New York. "Shield of David," published in 2022, tells the role of Jews in the American armed forces from the Revolutionary War to now.

 

Tickets are $30 for members and with advance reservation; $35 day of; $22 for students 22 and under. Reservations are strongly encouraged as seats are limited. Walk-ins accommodated as space allows. For reservations visit https://gildedage.org/events/ or call us at (413) 637-3206. Please note that all tickets are nonrefundable and non-exchangeable. The historical mansion is located at 104 Walker Street in Lenox.

 

The summer series of Tea & Talks is sponsored by the Dobbins Foundation.