Silk filature or factory, Shanghai, c.1900, Jane Hayward collection, Hy01-45
A filature was an establishment for reeling silk from cocoons. There were many such factories in Shanghai and they must have employed several hundred children.
Silk was of course a luxury item for the wealthy, and much exported. This sobering image (Hy01-45), complete with fingerprint, brings to mind the campaigning work of Jacob Riis, in New York (How the Other Half Lives).