Child Labor and Children

¶ … Babies in the Mill" By Dorsey Dixon

The historical context of "Babies in the Mill" by Dorsey Dixon is in both the words of the song and the presentation of the song (folk/blues). Composed in the 1960s by Dorsey Dixon, the song memorializes a time from 1880 to 1920 when child labor was used in the textile mills -- where Dorsey himself had worked (and seen firsthand that exploitation of children as described in the song).

From the 1880s to the 1920s, American industrialism had brought about a major change in the workforce. Mills like the textile mills and cotton mills described in Dixon's song were producing more and more product as labor was more and more divided up into simple tasks. Cheap labor allowed mill owners to drive up profit margins, as at the time there were no federal laws regulating the use of child labor. In fact, throughout much of the West, including Europe and the UK, the exploitation of children in factories and of workers in general had led directly to the rise of unions and protest movements by the working class against the bourgeoisie. Dixon's song reflects the reality of this child exploitation with lyrics like: "Those babies all grew up unlearned, they never went to school. They never learned to read or write. They learned to spin and spool. Every time I close my eyes, I see that picture still when textile work was carried on by babies in the mill." The song is a kind of dirge for lost youth -- much in the manner of a William Blake poem, whose collection of Songs of Innocence and Experience are a cornerstone of Romantic Era poetry.

From the standpoint of its primary context, the song's composition in the 1960s would have had a particular social significance for the audience at that time: the 1960s were a period of social upheaval during which equality and social grievances were hot button issues that were dominating the foreground. The Civil Rights Movement was underway and racial, social and political tensions were high. President Kennedy would be assassinated that same decade along with activists like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. This turbulent era was known both artists expressing original, personal perspectives on life (Nina Simone would unite classical piano with jazz and blues to project a new kind of music) and Dixon utilized the folk/country genre to remind the nation of an earlier time in which injustice towards children was commonplace. "Babies in the Mill" is not quite a protest anthem (like so many songs in the 1960s) but rather a bluesy, mournful dirge for the past -- for the loss of innocence that occurred in America decades earlier.

This loss of innocence would have resonated with the American audience of the 1960s, whose own youth were "rebelling" by experimenting with rock 'n' roll, drug use, and the sexual revolution. Youth across the nation were embracing an anti-war, anti-establishment, anti-authoritarian lifestyle in which the old codes, mores, and standards of conduct were eschewed for a freer, looser way of living. In this context, Dorsey Dixon's song presents a haunting reminder for America that it has a debt to pay to its children -- just like it has a debt to pay to the African-Americans it enslaved and oppressed with Jim Crow laws up into the 20th century.