Literacy resources | USA Regional A - M titles | Inquiry Unlimited

Children Working in America

Inquiry Unlimited's classroom application: Teaching American History


  1. Alland, Alexander Sr. Jacob A. Riis Photographer & Citizen. New York: Aperture Foundation, 1973.
  2. Atkin, S. Beth. Voices from the Fields: Children of Migrant Farmworkers Tell Their Stories:. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1993.
  3. Bader, Bonnie. East Side Story. New York: Silver Moon Press, 1993. (72 pages) A young girl and her older sister, working in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory, a sweatshop on the Lower East Side of New York City, join a protest to try to improve the miserable working conditions.
  4. Bartoletti, Susan Campbell. Kids on Strike. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999. (J331.3B)
  5. Bartoletti, Susan Campbell. Growing Up in Coal Country. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1996. (127 pages)
  6. Bartone, Elisa. Peppe The Lamplighter. New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books, 1993. (unpaged)
  7. Bethell, Jean. Three Cheers for Mother Jones!. New York: Hold, Rinehart and Winston, 1980.
  8. Cahn, Rhoda and William. No time for School No time for Play: The Story of Child Labor in America. New York: Julian Messner, 1972. (J331.3C)
  9. Cahn, Rhoda and William. The Story of Child Labor in America. New York: Julian Messner, 1972. ("Tommy, The Bobbin Boy," pages 7-13)
  10. Colman, Penny. Mother Jones and the March of the Mill Children. Brookfield, CT: The Millbrook Press, 1994.
  11. Currie, Stephen. We Have Marched Together: The Working Children's Crusade. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications Company, 1997. (J331.3C)
  12. Flanagan, Alice K. The Lowell Mill Girls. Minneapolis: MN, 2006. (J331.3 Flanagan)
  13. Freedman, Russell. Kids at Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade Against Child Labor. New York: Clarion Books, 1994.
  14. Goldin, Barbara Diamond. Fire!: The Beginnings of the Labor Movement. New York: Puffin Books, 1992. (54 pages)
  15. Gourley, Catherine. Good Girl Work: Factories, Sweatshops, and How Women Changed Their Role in the American Workforce. Brookfield, CT: The Millbrook Press, 1999.
  16. Greenwood, Barbara. Factory Girl. Toronto: Kids Can Press, 2007. (136 pages) Twelve-year-old Emily must hold down her job working twelve-hour days in a garment factory in order to keep from starving. The story includes historical interludes about the working conditions in factories at the turn of the century.
  17. Harlow, Joan Hiatt. Joshua's Song. New York: Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2001.
  18. Hendershot, Judith. In Coal Country. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987.
  19. Hest, Amy. When Jessie Came Across the Sea. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press, 1997. (unpaged) A rabbi in an Eastern European shtetl gives Jessie a ticket to America. She arrives in New York, works as a dressmaker, saves money, and purchases a ticket for her grandmother.
  20. Hoose, Phillip. We Were There, Too! Young People in U.S. History. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2001. (J973 HOOSE) "Rose Cohen: First Day in a Sweatshop," "Joseph Miliauskas: Breaker Boy," "Kid Blink and the Newsies: Bringing Down Goliath," "Terry Grimmesey: "What Had We Done?")
  21. Koestler-Grack, Rachel A. The Story of Mother Jones. Philadelphia: Chelsea Clubhouse, 2004.
  22. Kraft, Betsy Harvey. Mother Jones: One Woman's Fight for Labor. New York: Clarion Books, 1995. (JB Jones)
  23. Krensky, Stephen. The Iron Dragon Never Sleeps. New York: Delacorte Press, 1994. (90 pages) In 1867, while staying with her father in a small California mining town, ten-year-old Winnie meets a Chinese boy close to her age and discovers the role of his people in completing the transcontinental railroad.
  24. Kroeger, Mary Kay. Paperboy. New York: Clarion Books, 1996.
  25. Lange, Brenda. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 2008. (J974.71 Lange)
  26. Lehrman, Robert. The Store That Mama Built. New York: Macmillan, 1992. (126 pages) In 1917 twelve-year-old Birdie and her siblings, the children of Jewish immigrants from Russia, help their recently widowed mother run the family store, picking up where their father left off in his struggle to succeed in America. (Russia)
  27. Levitin, Sonia. Junk Man's Daughter. Chelsea, MI: Sleeping Bear Press, 2007.
  28. Lieurance, Suzanne. The Locket: Surviving the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers, 2008. (160 pages) After Galena, an eleven-year-old Russian immigrant survives a terrible fire at the non-Unionized Triangle Shirtwaist Factory while her older sister and many others do not, she begins fighting for improved working conditions in New York City factories. (Russia)
  29. Littlefield, Holly. Fire at the Triangle Factory. Minneapolis: Carolrhoda Books, 1996. (48 pages)
  30. McCully, Emily Arnold. The Bobbin Girl. A ten-year-old bobbin girl working in a textile mill in Lowell, Massachusetts in the 1830s must make a difficult decision about participating in the first workers' strike in Lowell. [based on the life of Harriet Hanson Robinson]
  31. Miller, Connie Colwell. Mother Jones Labor Leader. Mankato, MN: Capstone Press, 2007.
  32. Rappaport, Doreen. Trouble at the Mines. New York: Bantam, 1987. (96 pages) Rosie and her family are caught up in the Arnot, Pennsylvania, mining strike of 1899-100 led by the union organizer Mother Jones.
  33. Saller, Carol. Florence Kelley. Minneapolis: Carolrhoda Books, Inc. 1997.
  34. Saller, Carol. Working Children. Minneapolis: Carolrhoda Books, Inc.1998. (J331.3S)
  35. Scott, Janine. Kids Have Rights Too! New York: Children's Press, 2008.
  36. Steinorth, Karl. Lewis Hine: Passionate Journey, Photographs 1905-1937. Zurich: Edition Stemmle, 1996.
  37. Wallace, Ian. Boy of the Deeps. New York: DK Publishing, 1999.
  38. Welch, Catherine A. Danger at the Breaker. Minneapolis: Carolrhoda Books, Inc. 1992.
  39. Winthrop, Elizabeth. Counting on Grace. New York: Random House Listening Library, 2006. (5 CDs Unabridged; Includes interview with the author and profile of Lewis Hine)
  40. Yin. Brothers. New York: Philomel Books, 2006. (unpaged) Having arrived in San Francisco from China to work in his brother's store, Ming is lonely until an Irish boy befriends him.
  41. Yin. Coolies. New York: Philomel Books, 2001. (unpaged)
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