An Injured Young Mill Worker
The image captured on October, 1912, shows Giles Edmund Newsom who was injured while working in Sanders Spinning Mill in Bessemer City, North Carolina earlier that year. A piece of machinery fell on his foot and smashed his toe, which caused him to fall onto a spinning machine which crushed and tore out two of his fingers. He was 11-years-old at the time. Both Giles and his younger brother worked in the mill several months before the accident. After the boys' father found out that the company was to pay out money for Giles and not the parents, he tried to compromise, while their mother blamed the boys that they got their jobs on their own. The aunt is documented to have said: “Now he’s jes got to where he could be of some help to his ma, an’ then this happens and he can’t never work no more like he oughter.”