The passing of Shirley Temple Black gives us pause to consider her life and times.

For the purposes of this blog, I'll pull out an excerpt from her 1988 autobiography which she levels child exploitation charges against the Hollywood studios which made her famous, but also subjected an untold number of kids to abuse:

When any of the two dozen children in “Baby Burlesks” misbehaved, they were locked in a windowless sound box with only a block of ice on which to sit. “So far as I can tell, the black box did no lasting damage to my psyche,” Mrs. Black wrote in “Child Star.” “Its lesson of life, however, was profound and unforgettable. Time is money. Wasted time means wasted money means trouble."

I can't imagine a child remembering the damage to her or anyone else's "psyche" at the age of four or five.  Nevertheless, the revelation opens a small window into the thinking of those in charge of the studios at a time when Hollywood was coming of age.