Lesson 4 The Winds of Change
Pictures Worth a Thousand Words
As quickly as a camera captures a scene, an ____ can grab hold of our emotions.
Through speech or written text, it can be difficult ____ convey a complex message quickly.
Yet photographs ____ change people’s hearts and minds in an instant.
And when the magic of photography sparks an emotional ____ in a great number of people, it can change history.
The Burning River That Started ____ Movement
In the 1880s, ____ began to grow rapidly along the Cuyahoga River in the city of Cleveland.
This industrial growth provided steady jobs to ____ in the area.
Meanwhile, steel mills and factories ____ dumping large amounts of waste into the river.
Although the river became ____ most people simply regarded this as a sign of the area’s economic success.
In June 1969, the polluted ____ caught fire.
The likely cause was a burning flare falling from a train, which set fire to ____ waste beneath a bridge.
At ____ time, few people in Cleveland cared.
This was because fires had been recorded on the Cuyahoga more than ten times before, and some of them had been ____ worse.
However, it wasn’t long before the ____ fire became famous.
This was thanks to ____ article published in Time magazine that year.
The article featured a ____ photograph of flames and smoke rising from the river.
But this was not a photograph of the 1969 fire, ____ was put out so quickly that nobody took a picture of it.
In fact, it was a picture of a ____ worse fire that had occurred on the river several years earlier.
Still, the image ____ a great impact on people.
____ that time, the attitudes of Americans toward environmental problems were starting to change.
More and more people were becoming aware of the ____ to protect the environment, and the shocking image of the burning river sparked public anger about water pollution.
____ a result, the Cuyahoga River fire of 1969 became a symbol of pollution.
A national environmental awareness event was held on April ____ 1970, which later became known as the first Earth Day.
And in 1972, national water quality standards were established with the ____ of the Clean Water Act.
Exposing the Harsh Reality of Child Labor
In the ____ century, the Industrial Revolution led to a dramatic increase in factory production in the United States.
The demand for workers increased, and many ____ positions were filled by children.
By 1900, about ____ percent of all children in the United States were employed, and some of those working in factories were only four years old.
The work was difficult and ____ leaving many child laborers with health problems.
Factory owners turned to child labor for ____ reasons.
For example, children could be paid less than adult ____
They were also less likely to go on ____
Lewis ____ a teacher and photographer, wanted to reveal how cruel this system was.
So he quit his ____ job and started to work for the National Child Labor Committee as an investigative photographer.
He gained access to factories by pretending to have different jobs like insurance agent or fire ____
Once inside, ____ would photograph the children working there.
He would also ask their names and ages and record ____ about their living and working conditions.
From 1908 to 1912, he secretly gathered information and took photographs to expose factory owners who were ____ advantage of helpless children.
Hine’s photographs captured young children doing ____ sorts of jobs.
These included ____ vegetables, weaving baskets, and even handling dangerous equipment.
What is more, the children’s faces showed the tragic ____ of hard labor.
____ people saw the children’s joyless expressions, they could not help but feel heartbroken.
The ____ were later shown in exhibitions, lectures, magazine articles, and so on.
As a result, the public realized just how serious the ____ was.
Soon, many ____ passed stronger laws to ban the employment of children.
In 1938, the United States Congress passed an act that made ____ illegal for children under sixteen to work in factories during school hours.
These examples show that photographs ____ bring meaningful change to society.
They prove ____ sometimes, a picture truly is worth a thousand words.