Written by Barbara Greenwood

At the dingy, overcrowded Acme Garment Factory, Emily Watson stands for eleven hours a day clipping threads from blouses. She can’t talk to the other girls who work beside her. She can’t even look up or the boss will snarl at her.

Every time the boss passes, he shouts at her to snip faster. But if Emily snips too fast, she could ruin the garment and be docked pay. If she works too slowly, she will be fired. She desperately needs this job. Without the four dollars a week it brings, her family will starve.

When a young reporter arrives, determined to expose the terrible conditions in the factory, Emily finds herself caught between the desperation of the immigrant girls she works with and the hope of change. Then tragedy strikes, and Emily must decide where her loyalties lie.

Emily’s story is based on the real-life plight of working children in North American cities in the early 1900s. Photographs and factual accounts of the people and events surrounding the urban poor complete this sensitive and gripping portrait of child labor, how it was eventually abolished in North America, and how it continues today in some parts of the world.

The archival photographs reproduced in this book are the work of Lewis Hine and other photographers who documented slums and child workers. Their visual witness to the exploitation of under-age workers was a catalyst in the drive to clean up urban slums and legally protect children.