The late 19th and early 20th century was a time of disregard for the welfare of this country's poorest children. Succumbing to greed and abetted by a lack of protective laws, U.S. industrial and manufacturing concerns, as well as its agricultural and even its entertainment sectors, exploited the predicament of the poverty-stricken in the urban slums and rural wastelands of our nation. They hired children, many scarcely past babyhood, to do degrading, dangerous, and difficult work for starvation wages. (12 posters/teacher's guide).