
These amazing images reveal the faces of the millions of immigrant laborers who built America.

The black-and-white photographs show men, women and children, some as young as seven, doing back breaking work in fields, factories and mine.

They show Japanese loggers, a Hungarian family hoeing beets in Michigan and Syrian children working in Massachusetts in 1911, in an era before oppressive child labour was outlawed.

Pictured are a group of Russian laborers, among the millions who came to the United States seeking a better life

Two Portuguese girls working in Royal Mill, River Point, Rhode Island, April 1909. The girls, who spoke no English, had been working at the mill for three years when this photograph was taken

Adolph Weiss (center) and his family in New York, 1912. The Jewish family and their neighbors are seen working into the night making garters. On the left is Mary, seven, and 10-year-old Sam, and next to the mother is a 12-year-old boy. On the right are Sarah, also age seven, and next to her is her 11-year-old sister and another boy

Two steelworkers, who came from England (left) and Germany (right). The growth of industry in the United States depended on the work of men like these

A seven-year-old girl working as an oyster shucker (left) in Canning County, South Carolina, helping her mother and father. The family earned $15 dollars a week. Picture right is 11-year-old girl picking cotton in Oklahoma

Among those picture is the family of Adolph Weiss, working with their neighbors work into the night making garters. Those working include two young girls and three adolescent boys.

Other images in the collection show a pair of Portuguese teenage sisters and a seven-year-old oyster shucker who spoke no English.

The pictures are testament to the diverse range of people who made the United States the nation it is today.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, some twelve million immigrants passed through Ellis Island looking for freedom, prosperity, and a better life in America.

While some of these new citizens brought trade skills with them, others did not.

But what they lacked in professional skill, they more than made up for in sweat and hard work.

A group of wood mill laborers from Finland taking a break from their work. Many immigrants worked long grueling hours for low pay

Japanese loggers. Among those who came America for a new life, there was an astonishing mix of nationalities

A Polish family pictured in 1909 working in the fields at Biloxi, Mississippi, which they had done for two years

Italian steel workers. Without the labor provided my immigrants, industry in the United States would not have grown on the scale it did

A young Polish steelworker, pictured on the left, while an Italian worker on New York State Barge Canal is pictured in 1912.

The Kastvan family from Hungary hoeing beets on a field in Michigan. They arrived the previous spring as part of a trainload of several hundred immigrants from New York City

Immigrant men and boys pictured working in a New York sweatshop in February 1908

Young doffer and spinner boys in Seaconnet Mill, Fall River, Massachusetts. None of them could write their own names and spoke almost no English

Pictured is Adrienne Pagnette, an illiterate French who spoke almost no English. Her job was to doff in a top floor spinning room in Glenallen Mill, Winchendon, Massachusetts, September 1911. She told the photographer that she was 15 but her sister Anna said she was 12. Her job involved stooping, reaching and pushing heavy boxes

A 14-year-old Italian girl working in a paper-box factory in 1913 (left). Pictured right is an immigrant boy named Stanislaus Beauvais at work in Salem, Massachusetts, 1911

Two Syrian children work at Maple Park Bog, Massachusetts, 1911, in an era before child labor laws came into force

Italian immigrants work as banana importers and distributors at an unspecified location around 1900

A young Polish boy picking berries in Maryland. He came from a family of agricultural migrants who work in oyster farming on the Gulf of Mexico during the winter

A Polish coal miner in Capels, West Virginia, 1938 (left). Pictured right is Willie, a Polish boy, taking his noon rest in a doffer box, Rhode Island, in April 1909

Young sweepers work at a mill in Lewiston, Maine, April 1909. Only one of two of them could speak any Englush. Jo, pictured far right, had worked at the mill for two years

When this picture was taken outside a Massachusetts mill in October 1911, Albert Therien, right, who was reckoned to be 13-years-old, had spent four weeks in the spinning room. Joseph Guerard, left, thought to be aged 12, had worked for about a year. Neither spoke nor understood English well

In late 19th and early 20th century, some twelve million immigrants passed through Ellis Island into the US.

These new American people, along with the old, pulled the country through an agricultural and industrial revolution that helped make the United States prosperous.

Between 1860 and 1910, the number of farms in the U.S., for example, went from 2 million to 6 million.

Without the labour provided by immigrants, this growth would not have been sustainable.

Industry, such as mining, steel, and factories, also benefited tremendously from the labor of immigrants, who worked these jobs to provide for their families in a way that was likely impossible in their homelands.

As these pictures reveal, often every member of these immigrant families, no matter what age, were expected to work these jobs.

These jobs often had abysmal pay, poor working conditions and gruelling hours.

The Fair Labor Standard Act of 1938 create the right to a minimum wage and prohibited most employment of minors in 'oppressive child labour'.