April 18, 2010 (1:00 pm): I have often wanted to take my readers through the research process as it develops in real time, and I have finally found that opportunity. As my research progresses, updates will be added. I do not know where my research will take me. However it finally turns out, readers will be able to share with me the up and downs, and the successes and failures that I encounter in the Lewis Hine Project.

"There are two hours out of the twenty-four (between two and four in the morning) when the streets of Detroit are practically free of young boys selling newspapers, but there is no other hour of the day or night when they are not there in large numbers."        Herschel H. Jones, Unregulated Street Trading in a Typical City, National Child Labor Committee, Publication 264.

Lewis Hine took hundreds of photographs of newsboys, commonly called newsies. He took a few of newsgirls, too. Many people today will no doubt look at these pictures and say. "So what's the big deal? I delivered papers when I was a kid. What's wrong with a kid earning a little money?"

In 1913, when these photos were taken, newsies often worked eight or more hours a day. They had to buy the newspapers wholesale, and then sell as many as they could, even if it meant staying out late until they sold them all. If they didn't, they lost money. It was a very competitive business, and they had to fight to protect their territory. The urban streets were full of shady characters who took advantage of them. There are plenty of stories about newsboys hanging around pool halls, smoking, drinking, gambling and getting mixed up with gangs. In St. Louis and Cincinnati, there were well known organizations that took care of these children by providing them with recreational opportunities and counseling, and sometimes, a place to live. There was even a popular movie about it in the 1940s, called Fighting Father Dunne, starring Pat O'Brien. The following is a synopsis of the film which appears on the Internet Movie Database website:

"St. Louis 1905: Parish priest Father Dunne becomes aware of the plight of the city's newsboys, living on pennies and often homeless, and resolves to help them. Through inspired finagling and the gift of the blarney, he organizes a sort of 'co-op' orphanage for increasing numbers of boys. Then he's faced with the tougher problem of stopping the escalating violence in inter-paper rivalry for the 'good corners.'"

On April 17, 2010, I stumbled upon a blog called "Unfair Park" in the Web edition of the Dallas Observer, by editor Robert Wilonksy. He had posted some of Hine's child labor photos in Dallas, in this case, messenger boys. The boys were not identified in the captions, making it next to impossible to track down their lives.

I logged on to the Library of Congress collection of Hine photos and browsed through the 19 pictures he took in Dallas. There were three that caught my attention, all of them of newsboys whose names were given. So I dropped everything and spent a good hour searching for information about these children. Here's what I have found out so far.

According to the 1920 census and other official records, the Kartis brothers were actually Rudolph L. Kartous and Louis J. Kartous. They were the sons of Tony and Fannie Katrous, immigrants who arrived in the US from either Hungary or Czechoslovakia in 1909. In 1920, Tony was working as a molder in a foundry. Rudolph was born February 10, 1906. Louis was born on October 22, 1904. In the 1930 census, Louis was married to Emily, and had two children, also Louis and Emily. He was a machinist at a foundry. Louis died in Dallas on March 5, 1978, and Rudolph died in Dallas on December 30, 1989. I have requested copies of their obituaries, which should help me locate living descendants.

In the 1920 census, Odell McDuffy is living in Wichita Falls, Texas, with his widowed mother, Stella, and his older sister, Adelle. He is unemployed. In the 1930 census, he is still in Wichita Falls, with his wife, Donna (Mitcham), and his mother-in-law. They have no children. Odell is a grocery store clerk. So far, I have been unable to find any other information on him.

In the 1920 and 1930 censuses, Sam (Samuel) Stillman was living in Dallas with his parents Hyman and Gertrude. By 1930, he was working as a bookkeeper for a clothier. He was born in Russia on December 7, 1907 (some records say 1906), and died in Dallas on February 14, 1993. I have requested his obituary as well.

Louis Shuman is another matter. I have found no records of anyone by that name or a similar name, and about that age, in Texas or anywhere else. Perhaps Hine badly misspelled his name. But I haven't given up. If I keep looking, he's bound to show up somewhere. He may have died young.

If you recognize any of these children, or otherwise have new information to contribute, please contact me at my email address at the bottom of this page.

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April 19, 2010 (8:30 am): I got up at 5:30 this morning and spent about 90 minutes before breakfast poking around on the Internet. I found lots of stuff.

I found Odell McDuffy in the 1910 census, living in Fannin, Texas, with his parents, John C. and Stella McDuffy, a brother, Ethell (?) and a sister, Adell. His father is a farmer. According to FindAGrave.com, John Collins McDuffy died on April 1, 1912, and is buried at Belmont Cemetery in Fannin County. So that means that Odell was photographed about 18 months after his father died. I also found a family history posting on Genealogy.com from the granddaughter one of Odell's older brothers, oddly enough named Othell. She gave her contact information, so I am going to send her Odell's photograph. Finally, I found Odell's Social Security death record. His full name was Collins Odell McDuffey, which explains why I couldn't find it before. He was born on January 8, 1907, and died in Wichita Falls on June 17, 1987. However, his Texas death record gives his date of death as February 18, 1988. So I requested his obituary from the Wichita Falls Library, and gave them both dates.

I may have found Louis Shuman, but I still have a long way to go. There is a Louis Schufman (or Schupman) in the 1920 census, living in Dallas. He was born about 1907, the son of Max and Becky Schufman, both born in Russia. Max is a junk peddler. They have seven children, the oldest three (including Louis) born in Russia, and the other four born in Colorado. This is interesting. There were a lot of Russian Jewish immigrant families who worked on beet farms in northern Colorado in the early 1900s, some who were photographed by Hine in 1916. This family may have been Colorado beet farmers before they moved to Dallas. The only other item I found was the California death record for a Louis S. Shaffman, who was born in Russia on January 15, 1907, and died in San Francisco on January 27, 1960. I requested his obituary from the San Francisco Public Library.

Finally, my curiosity has gotten the best of me (again!). There are two other photos, out of the 19 in Dallas, where the children were named by Hine. There names were siblings Rosy and Exie Phillips, and a girl named Leila Prater. They weren't newsies, but I decided to add them to this project anyway. I spent about 15 minutes on this, and I already have some clues. More about that in my next posting.

On RootsWeb.com, I had found a posting by Beatrice, who listed some family information and was asking if someone had more information about her grandfather, John. She included her email address, but when I sent her an email with a link to the picture, it didn't go through. So I looked her up in the Internet white pages and found her. She told me that Rosa married John C. Boone and died in Fayetteville, North Carolina on October 19, 1941. Beatrice was only seven then. I mailed her a copy of the photograph and plan to interview her soon.

I also found Leila Prater in the 1920 census, living in Dallas in the home of a family for which she was working as a housekeeper. The census spelled her first name Lelia. She was born in 1895 in Georgia. The only other information I have found so far is a Lola Prater in the 1930 census, also born in Georgia in 1895. She is single, living in Atlanta, and her occupation is listed as servant. That's it for now.

It's possible that Leila was an unwed mother, and somehow learned about this place while living in Georgia. On a tip from a posting on Genealogy.com, I contacted the Central Adoption Registry in Austin, to see if they have any records of Leila giving up a child for adoption. I am almost convinced now that the Lola Prater I found in the 1930 census in Atlanta is Leila. She was the same age, and even had the same occupation. It makes sense that she would have returned to Georgia. I searched Georgia death records and marriage records on Ancestry.com, but could find nothing on Leila.

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April 23, 2010 (6:00 am): I searched the Atlanta Constitution newspaper archives yesterday for Leila (Lola) Prater, but found nothing. I also checked both the Georgia and Texas birth records for people named Prater born between 1910 and 1913, looking for a possible child born to Leila, since she was living in a home for unwed mothers. I came up empty on that as well. I also check the Georgia death records, but she wasn't listed. The Central Adoption Agency in Austin replied and could not help. So I am stuck at this point.

I also did some further checking and found that Louis Shaffman, who died in San Francisco, was not the Louis Shuman photographed in Dallas. I found out that Shaffman entered the US through San Francisco, in 1931.

I have found some interesting information about Sam Stillman. More details about that soon.

I will be calling the niece of Rudy and Louis Kartous soon.

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April 30, 2010 (4:15 to 5:50 pm): I talked to Lee Welch, the stepson of Odell McDuffey. Predictably, he knew nothing about the photo. In a brief conversation, he told me that Odell was quite an amateur baseball player. He was a righty who was known for his knuckleball. I will mail out the photo to Mr. Welch tomorrow and call him up for an interview in about 10 days.

I also talked to a niece of Rudolph and Louis Kartous. Her father was a younger brother of the boys. She has family photos of them. She is going to get me in touch with a daughter of one of them. She told me that her uncles used to participate in newsboy reunions.

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May 4, 2010 (12:30 pm): I received Sam Stillman's obituary yesterday from the Dallas Public Library. Among his survivors were a son and grandson, both of whom I located right away. I called and talked to the son about 9:30 this morning. He hadn't seen the picture before. He is a college professor and once taught a course in American photographic history, including the work of Lewis Hine, but he never knew, until now, that Hine photographed his father. I will be interviewing him. At 11:30, I interviewed Beatrice Earl, the daughter of Rosa Mae Phillips. We talked for a good hour. She gave me a lot of information, which I will add later. She had heard of Exie Phillips, but she knew nothing about him.

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May 7, 2010 (4:15 pm): I tracked down the phone number of a person in Texas named Exie Phillips, who is listed as being born in 1927. I presumed that there was a good chance this person was the son of Exie, who is in the photograph with his sister Rosa. I called, and Exie answered the phone. Sad to say, this Exie is a woman, and she is married to a man named Phillips. That's a bummer. Such are the ups and downs of historical research. I just sent off a request for the obit for Rosa. Perhaps I will find some clues about Exie in it.

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May 10, 2010 (4:00 pm): It's been a full day. I transcribed my interview with Beatrice, the daughter of Rosa Mae Phillips. It was an emotional experience. After all, her mother died when she was seven years old, and she had never seen a photo of her mother as a girl, until I sent the Hine photo to her. She told me that Rosa married Frank Lamb in Arkansas at the age of 15, had three children by him, and all three of them died very young. She doesn't know their names. Then she moved to Virginia and married again, in 1926. She doesn't know if her mother divorced Frank Lamb, or if he died. Her second husband was John C. Boone, who was only 19 when she married him. She was about 27. They had seven children, but five of them died very young or were stillborn. She has no idea what their names were or even if they were boys or girls. The only ones who survived were Beatrice and her sister, Elsie.

Transcribing an interview is tedious, so I took a few breaks and did some research on this case. I found some amazing information, and I can't wait to tell Beatrice about it. I found the death certificate online for one of the children who would have been a brother. He was stillborn in 1930, in North Carolina. I found her mother and her first husband Frank Lamb in the 1920 census, in Mooney, Arkansas. No children are listed. Also, in the Arkansas Death Index, I found three persons named Lamb who died in the same county (Arkansas County), in 1926, 1927 and 1929. Their dates of birth and their parents names are not given, but one of them was named Rosa Mae (Rosa's name), and one was named Homer (Rosa had a brother named Homer), so I am guessing that these were the three children born to Rosa and Frank. I also found two persons named Frank Lamb who died in Arkansas, one in 1925 and one in 1936. I have requested obituaries on all of them, and I am going to call Arkansas County to see if I can confirm the names of the parents for the children. And one more thing - I found Exie's death certificate online, as well as the death certificate of Rosa's mother, Dicie. Exie was married when he died, in Ft. Worth, Texas. His occupation was listed as truck driver. As I said, it's been a full day.

I told her I would make copies of all the documents and mail them to her. Several hours later, I got an email from the Cumberland County Public Library in Fayetteville. It was Rosa's obituary.

Funeral Held for Mrs. Rosa Boone

Final rites for Mrs. Rosa Mae Boone, 41, who died Sunday afternoon, were conducted at the home of her sister, Mrs. J. C. Alexander, at Lakedale yesterday afternoon at 3 o'clock by Rev. Mr. Covington. Burial was in Mims Cemetery. Pallbearers were Terry Parker, Yates Black, T. N. Church, Wingate McPherson, S. J. Butler and T. F. Parker. -Fayetteville Observer, October 21, 1941

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May 12, 2010: (6:30 am): The first thing I saw this morning when I opened my email was a Google News alert linking me to Robert Wilonsky's latest blog in the Dallas Observer. I have news alerts set for "Lewis Hine" and "Joe Manning." Robert found another Hine photo of Rosa Phillips, a group shot with no names in the caption. There were 19 Hine photos taken in Dallas. I immediately combed through all 19 and found two more of Rosa, one of them with Exie. I usually search related photos for my subjects, but I've been so busy that I hadn't gotten around to it. Thanks, Robert. I can't wait to tell Beatrice that I've got some more pictures to send her.

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May 13, 2010 (11:30 am): Big news. I found Louis Shuman. As I mentioned before, I had found him in Dallas in the 1920 census, but that's all. I had almost given up. I started searching this morning for his father, Max, and there he was, in the 1930 census, in Los Angeles, with his wife Rebecca and four kids, one of them Louis, who was working as an auto mechanic. That opened up the flood gates. A few minutes later, I found the family in the 1915 Iowa Census, living in Souix City. Max is a fruit peddler, and Louis is in school. They reported that they had been living in Iowa for one year, and in the US for 10 years. So when Louis was photographed selling newspapers, he was headed for Iowa a year later. They had been moving around a lot, in Colorado, Dallas, Nebraska (one of the kids was born there), Iowa, and Los Angeles. Max died in Los Angeles in 1940, and Louis died there in 1970. In the 1938 California voter registration list, Max was a listed as a butcher, and Louis a laborer. Subsequent voter registration lists show Louis as a truck mechanic, possibly married to Ruth. Ruth disappeared from the list in the early 1950s, perhaps due to death. I have requested Louis's obituary.

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May 21, 2010 (5:00 pm): Busy day today. I interviewed Lee Welch, Odell McDuffey's stepson. Lee was seven years old when Odell married his mother, so he was essentially raised by him. I will be transcribing the interview when I get time. Mr. Welch will be sending me some family photos of Odell. I received obituaries for Rosa Phillips's parents, and the obit for Exie Phillips. He was survived by one child, identified in the obit as Mrs. J.V. Merry, of Fort Worth. So far, I can't track her down. I called all the people with the surname Merry who live in Forth Worth, but none were related. I found the death record for an Andrew Prater, the apparent name of Leila Prater's father. He died in Meriwether County, Georgia, in 1931. I called the local library and they found the obit, but it was just a death announcement, with no survivors or family information listed. There's one more thing. I searched the Los Angeles Times historical archives for obits on Louis Shuman, his father and his siblings. Nothing turned up. One of his brothers, Solomon Shuman, died in Miami, but the Miami library could not locate the obit.

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May 24, 2010 (7:15 pm): Disappointing news. I thought I had found one of Solomon Shuman's relatives. On one of the "people finder" websites, I looked up Solomon Shuman, and found a Miami-area phone number for him that was active in the 1990s. He died in 1996. When I called the number, a woman answered, and when I explained what I was doing, she confirmed that her husband was related to Solomon Shuman. But it turned out that this Solomon Shuman grew up in Philadelphia and was not the brother of Louis Shuman. So I am back to square one. With no obituaries for Louis or any of his siblings, it looks like I am running out of options. But I'm not giving up just yet. By the way, based on the census, the brother photographed with Louis was Morris. He died in California in 1955.

"Mr. Shuman was the owner of the House of Wrought Iron in Glendale. He is survived by his widow, Mrs. Dorothy Shuman, a son, Joseph Bloom, two grandchildren, a nephew, and a niece. Born in Russia in 1906, Mr. Shuman was brought to the United States a year later. He served in the Navy in World War II, and was a member of the American Legion."

I was not clear why his son's last name was Bloom. However, moments later, I found his obituary also, in the same newspaper. It said, in part: "Mr. Bloom was a printer, who owned and operated Jaybee Offset Printing. He is survived by his wife Kay, a son, Martin, a daughter, Lynn and three grandchildren." After several hours of non-stop research, I believe I may have found a phone number for Lynn. More on this later.

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June 7, 2010 (4:00 pm): I just did a telephone interview with Sam Stillman's son, who lives in Baltimore. Sam was an accountant by trade, and was married to a licensed pharmacist. He loved sports, especially baseball and football. I'll be posting his story sometime this summer. I may have come to the end of the road with Louis Shuman. I've tried everything I could think of, but I cannot locate his son, Joseph Bloom, or any other descendants. So I will probably write his story based on what I have so far. I will be posting it on this site, probably in a few weeks.

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September 28, 2010 (1:30 pm): I'm back with another completed story, actually two combined into one. It's about Odell McDuffey and Sam Stillman. Click on the photo at the top of this page. That leaves two photos left to go, The Kartous Brothers, and the Shuman Brothers.