A social drama inspired by the poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, The Cry of the Children (1912) addressed child labor in American factories. Thanhouser was proud of the film, which featured scenes of moppets working under harsh conditions shot in a real factory. One critic at "The Moving Picture World" called it "The boldest, most timely and most effective appeal for the stamping out of the cruelest of all social abuses...." Selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

By Sean Axmaker