Down in Southern Jersey
Down in southern New Jersey they make glass. By day and by night, the fires burn on in Millville and bid the sand let in the light ... Big, black flumes shooting out smoke and sparks, bottles, bottles of every tint and hue, from a brilliant crimson to the dud green that marks the death of sand and the birth of glass. From each fire, the white heat radiates on the 'blowers,' the 'gaffers,' and the carryin' boys. The latter are from nine to eighteen years of age, averaging about fourteen, and they outnumber the adult workers... Their education has consisted mainly of ... contact with 'blowers' and 'gaffers' ... The manufacturers have endowed a night school, but ... the boys cannot keep their head up and their eyes open during the sessions ... But the 'carryin' boys work from nine to ten and get two dollars and a half a week, sometimes three. Passing through, back and forth in the pale weird light, these creatures... are grimy, wiry, scarmy, scrawny, stunted specimens, and I cuss-words and salacious talk, they know all the grown men know.
- Carl Sandburg "In Reckless Ecstasy." 1904