A Heartbreaking Plea for a 'Stout' Boy
A desperate local advertisement seeks a home for an eight-year-old child in exchange for farm labor in the late 1870s.
Wanted! A smart, intelligent boy, eight years of age, wishes to procure a home with kind-respectable family in the country. He is large and stout for his age, and fully able to do all the ordinary chores about a place. The object is to secure a good home for him, where he can receive kind treatment and schooling. Address: S. H. Buskinson, Seattle, W. T.
“He is large and stout for his age, and fully able to do all the ordinary chores about a place.”
In 1877, this advertisement appeared as a casual line item, reflecting an era when child labor was often treated as a standard, utilitarian trade-off for room and board. It serves as a stark reminder of the fragile social safety nets of early Seattle, where children were often viewed through the lens of their capacity for 'chores' rather than the modern standard of youth protection.
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