
“Breaker boys,” most 8–12, who worked 60-hour weeks breaking coal when child labor was permitted
In the annals of American history, few images are as stark and haunting as that of the breaker boys. These were the young children, some as young as eight and rarely older than twelve, who toiled in the coal mines during the age when child labor was not just permitted but an accepted and necessary evil in the industrial machinery of the time.











