The 1912 threshing of little Sally York, aged 9, in the cotton loom of the North Fork Textile Mill was one of a handful of such accidents that helped legislators push through the Keating-Owning Act of 1916, the first child-labor law in American history.

From the time of the accident until the mill’s closing four decades later, workers consistently complained of cold spots, strange noises, and sudden taps on the shoulder when nobody was near.

The mill’s foremen never paid these complaints any mind until this photograph surfaced in 1932. It was taken by a traveling photographer named Benny Johnson, who promptly sold it to the North Fork Gazette for an unprecedented ten dollars. The mill had shut down for the Christmas holidays and was empty at the time. The photo was later blamed for the closing of the mill, though the Great Depression was the more likely cause of that.