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December 1908. Dillon, South Carolina. Johnnie, works at Maple Mills. 8 years old. Said "Ain't got no last name" when asked for it. Beginning to "help sister spin." View full size. Photograph and caption by Lewis Wickes Hine.
When I worked for the Nickel Plate Railroad in Canton Ohio about 1950, a local produce company there often received cars of this type loaded with watermelons. I was told they were called convertible-door cars.
Ice cooled refrigerator cars were in use as early as 1880. These ventilated cars were mostly used by Southern railroads to carry produce to Northern cities.
You will note that the car is provided with two doors. The ventilated one and a solid one so the car could be used for general cargo. End doors could be used for extra ventilation or for loading long lumber by hand.
As for the boy, he does appear to be something of a natty dresser for his station in life. Note what appear to be buttons by his knee. Shirt seems a bit dirty, but nice looking shoes.
Re: "The hatches on the end may have contained ice occasionally"
Those hatches are for the end ventilators, and are opened when the car is used to ship produce.
These ventilator-style boxcars were also known as watermelon cars. Cars from ACL and other Southeastern railroads were used to ship watermelons to Northern cities like Chicago.
The Atlantic Coast Line boxcar is a "ventilator" style car, used mostly for transporting fruit and vegetables to market. These were the direct precursors of the "ice reefer" cars. The hatches on the end may have contained ice occasionally, but the icers that would follow, had special ice bunkers, filled by hatches on the top of the car. Since this car is at a textile mill, it was probably being used to ship cotton, or wool.
Dillon is right down the road from South of the Border, famous for kitschy signs throughout the area:
"You Never Sausage a Place! You're Always a Wiener at Pedro's!"
"Keep yelling, kids! (They'll stop.)"
Maybe Johnnie X had a chance to visit in later years and sip a beer in the shade of the Sombrero Tower.
Sister Spinner could have been much older, and helping Johnnie survive. In any event, he's a tough little nugget. Some urchins were/are better at survival than others.
He seems to be better dressed and shod than Hine's other urchins.
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