Cigarette Girl: 1911

So, while the photo's caption sat around for 100 years with Hine's proclaiming Ethel's age of 13 was "doubtful", we know now that she was telling the truth all along! Rest in peace Ethel!

[Lewis Hine was frequently "doubtful" in his caption notes as to whether these kids were as old as they said they were. But for every name we or our readers have been able to check in the Social Security Death Index, the "doubtfuls" all turn out to have been telling the truth, Shorpy himself among them. - Dave]

The Social Security Death Index shows an Ethel Shumate, born on 28, Jan 1898, which would have been this girl's birth year according to the 1910 census, who died January 1981 in Flint, Michigan. There are only nine Ethel Shumates listed so it is likely her. Perhaps she never married or was divorced.

It's awfully shallow for a trough, at least from this angle, but that's what I thought it was, too, since they had them then. I'm thinking now it is a spittoon or a place to dispose of cigarette/cigar butts. This was the era you would see "Don't spit" signs on the streetcars; not only was it dirty, but it spread tuberculosis.

[It's a cast-iron horse waterer, with plumbing. Somewhere around here I have a picture showing it being used. - Dave]

What does the bottom of the Coca-Cola billboard say?

[5¢ relieves fatigue sold everywhere - Dave]

What is that next to the fire hydrant? A public trough for horses maybe?

The 1910 census lists Ethel as 12. She's listed as the first child of James C. and Lucy L. Shumate living at 614 Upper St.