Mother hides her face as she puts her children on sale in Chicago, 1948 ( colourized )
Wednesday, 12 Mar 2025
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My grandmother experienced something similar when she was 8. Her parents could no longer afford to feed the children, so they were sent out to work for other families.
She worked full-time as a maid/housekeeper in exchange for food and a bed. She was allowed to visit her family one day a week and on holidays.
I think it’s almost impossible for us to believe the harsh realities of poverty almost 100 years ago. I am so thankful as a parent that, even when times feel tough, I am always able to feed my children.
“….The woman in the photograph remarried after selling/giving away her five children and had four more daughters….”. Damn…
I think this happened quite a bit 100 years ago. My grandmother was born into a Cherokee freedmen family in Eastern Oklahoma in 1912 and had two younger siblings. Her mother disappeared around 1916 and her father died from alcoholism in 1918.
Surviving relatives took the kids into town and sold them. My grandma ended up in a white family who raised her and worked her like a rented donkey.
Sometime around 1926 she met my grandfather, a white kid who grew up on a farm a few miles outside of town. He ran off with her in 1928 and married her. He stayed with her and treasured her his entire life until he passed away sixty years later in 1986.
My grandmother loved him with everything she had for seeing the worth of a mixed-race black, possibly Cherokee, or maybe white girl because nobody knows for sure. He took her away from the life she had and treated her like a princess until the day he died.
“Within two years all of the children pictured, as well as the baby she was carrying at the time, were sold off to different homes.”
The good old days weren’t that good for quite a few people I think.
TIL you could sell your children in the forties
[More detail](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/4-children-sale-1948/)
bro look at them hugging each other
Ya my grandma along with her 12 siblings got given away
She reconnected with 6-7 of them years later cause they looked almost identical and moved to same area lol
Man that’s rough.
r/sadasfuck
That little girl’s face breaks my heart. I imagine they were scarred for life.
Is this when America was great?
People forget how bad it can get. We put in social safety nets to stop this from happening to Americans.
It’s been sooo much fun watching people who have no understanding of struggle dismantle these safety nets.
Something similar happened to my family. Gives you some insight on how difficult things really were. My grandmothers mother died during birth, resulting in what we speculate, 3 out of 8 children were given away. I have no idea when adoption and documentation of babies became a thing. But somehow they were taken to a different country.
As a father of two: Look in their unknowing eyes…
heartbreaking 💔
For all the people saying that this is a AI generated image… It is not! This was taken after The Great Depression came to an end. The Great Depression lasted from 1929-1939.
This is a legitimate picture taken in 1948 in Chicago, IL. The original photo is black and white. This is a technicolor copy of the original photo. Here are the source details per Wikipedia.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/4_Children_for_Sale
Second article showing two of the four children reunited in 2014.
https://tucson.com/news/local/sold-as-kids-their-lives-now-converge/article_f4fe5e61-f226-5a63-96f9-270154a02545.html
More Articles:
2018 Article
https://www.thepublicopinion.com/story/news/local/2018/12/19/south-dakota-man-whose-father-was-in-4-children-for-sale-photo-pieces-together-his-pas/116602674/
Another Article:
https://creatingafamily.org/adoption-category/4-children-for-sale-story-behind-the-picture/
can’t help but think that this is probably where pro-life people want us to end up with their ”have kids don’t worry about the money” and ”ban abortions and birth control” bullshit
Everytime this comes up, my heart feels squeezed in my chest
The youngest just looks so much like my son
I remember someone saying these poor children went through so much afterwards
I don’t understand how the world could be so cruel and I am grateful that we are okay….but so scared for the day we aren’t
Bought milk, eggs, butter, bread, fruit pouches for the babies, baby protein drinks, hair moose, and some over the counter nose spray
It came out to $100
People make fun of voters who said groceries were a huge motivator for them
Even if I don’t agree with how they voted, I fucking get it, it feels like we are being squeezed and wtf are we supposed to do?
Birth control changed lives. Women could not access birth control in 1948 without their husband’s approval, and many husbands didn’t approve.
Crazy thing is, this type of practice still happens in the modern day but just in developing/3rd world countries. For example in Bangladesh, poor folks will send their young (11+) children to the city, for money in return, to work odd jobs with one of the most common being a house maid. It really is sad that they have to treat their children like an asset because they know they can’t afford to keep them, but also need money.
Is this when america was great?
Watch how smug we get. We are closer to this than the rich y’all voted into power.
My great great grandma was sold to home slavery cuz her parents couldn’t afford all the kids they had. This was kind of common at the time. They would also marry them off young.
I wonder what happened to these children.
How much would they go for?
I believe the story we don’t see in the photo is far more tragic. The children were abused, one ended up being r*ped/pregnant and sent away, supposedly the mother used the money for gambling and ended up having other children after she sold these. I saw a documentary detailing the children as adults, and they seemed to really suffer.