NOTE: This event has been canceled.

 

AUGUSTA — Massachusetts author and historian Joe Manning will give a presentation, “Lives that Matter: Stories of Child Laborers in Eastport, Maine,” at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 30, at the Maine State Museum, 230 State St. A reception hosted by the Friends of the Maine State Museum will be held at 6 p.m., prior to the talk.

Manning’s illustrated talk will center on the photographs of Lewis Hine. In the early 1900s, Hine worked for the National Child Labor Committee and took more than 5,000 photographs of child laborers nationwide in an effort to expose their plight and end child labor in the United States, according to a news release from the museum. Manning has worked for nine years to identify and tell the stories of those children by finding and interviewing their descendants.

In Maine, Hine took more than 50 photographs of children, some as young as six years old, working for fish canneries in Eastport, Maine, in 1911, according to the news release. At the museum presentation, Manning will show some of the Eastport photographs, tell the stories of the children and talk about the process of searching for descendants, most of whom were not aware of the pictures.

A social worker for 30 years, Manning retired in 1999 to devote his time to his writing career. His Lewis Hine project has been featured on CBS Evening News, National Public Radio and in Yankee Magazine.

For more information, call 287-2301 or visit www.mainestatemuseum.org.