An early twentieth-century address by A. J. McKelway of the National Child Labor Committee on child labor in the Southern cotton mill industry. It traces the problem from Eli Whitney's cotton gin and English and New England mills to the growth of Southern manufacturing, compares state age limits and legislation, and reports on weak enforcement, illiteracy, and school attendance in the Carolinas, Georgia and Alabama. It argues that child labor is a national rather than sectional evil and appeals for reform by both North and South.

National Child Labor Committee Pamphlet No. 92 reports investigations of child labor in North and South Carolina cotton mills, carried out in 1908 by photographer Lewis W. Hine and investigators Rev. A. E. Seddon and A. H. Ulm. The text covers mill by mill findings on children's ages, night shifts, wages, illiteracy and mill schools, and summarizes the state child labor laws and their lack of enforcement. Twenty-six numbered plates, mostly Hine's photographs of child workers in spinning rooms and outside mills, are reproduced with captions.

An address by A. J. McKelway of the National Child Labor Committee arguing against the employment of young children in Southern cotton mills. It opens with an account of a train carrying Tennessee mountain families to South Carolina mills, then reviews the history of child factory labor in Manchester and New England. It also covers the growth of Southern cotton manufacturing, with spindle counts, mill numbers and workforce figures, and the economic, health, educational and moral case for child labor legislation.

Reprint of an address by Rev. Neal L. Anderson given at the first annual meeting of the National Child Labor Committee in 1905. It surveys child labor laws in the Southern states, covering age limits, proof of age, hours, education requirements and enforcement, with attention to the cotton mills of the Carolinas, Georgia and Alabama. It also gives the author's account of a visit to two Alabama mills, discusses obstacles to effective legislation, and ends with practical recommendations.

A 1908 article by Rev. Alfred E. Seddon arguing that welfare work in Southern cotton mills does not replace compulsory education. He reports his own examinations of mill children in South Carolina and Mississippi, with counts of illiterate children by mill and school enrolment versus attendance figures. He also discusses the half-time school system, the harm of mill work for girls and boys, false statements about children's ages, and the need to pair child labor laws with compulsory schooling.