Lewis Hine: 10 works

'While teaching at New York's Ethical Cultural School in 1905, Hine took his students to Ellis Island to photograph incoming immigrants. In this photograph, Hine carefully positioned his subjects, bringing to mind altarpieces featuring the Madonna and Christ child surrounded by angels.'

'This framing and the inclusion of a self-portrait suggest Hine's empathetic nature toward his subject matter. Of his emphasis on the human condition in his images, Hine wrote: "...one (misconception) is that our material assets 'just happen' as the product of a bunch of impersonal machines...'

'This framing and the inclusion of a self-portrait suggest Hine's empathetic nature toward his subject matter.'

'Lewis Hine's photographs of poor children in deplorable working conditions, made while on assignment from the National Child Labor Committee, were instrumental in the passage of child labor laws in the United States.'

'Trained as a sociologist and recognizing the power of photography to sway public opinion and to create social change, Lewis Hine gave up his teaching job in 1908 and went to work full time as a photographer for the recently formed National Child Labor Committee (NCLC). His photographs of young children working in fields, factories, mills, and mines were reproduced in pamphlets and display materials of the NCLC and helped raise awareness of the plight of child workers, eventually leading to protective legislation.'

'Trained as a sociologist and recognizing the power of photography to sway public opinion and to create social change, Lewis Hine gave up his teaching job in 1908 and went to work full time as a photographer for the recently formed National Child Labor Committee (NCLC). His photographs of young children working on the street and in fields, factories, mills, and mines were reproduced in pamphlets and display materials of the NCLC and helped raise awareness of the plight of child workers, eventually leading to protective legislation.'

'Tony Casale, an eleven-year-old newsboy in Hartford, Connecticut, faces the camera in the straightforward manner of Lewis Hine's portraits of child laborers. Hine's subjects often appear front and center, surrounded by machinery or the products of their toil.'

'Introducing middle-class America to the ugly truth about children's working conditions, Hine's photographs were a powerful tool in social reformers' efforts to fight child labor.'

'The private philanthropy of the Progressive Era had been replaced by the government agencies of the New Deal which found Hine difficult and old-fashioned. At the same time artists and art historians like Berenice Abbott and Beaumont Newhall began to champion a new modern style of photographic art, recognizing Hine as the spiritual ancestor of Walker Evans and Charles Sheeler.'

'Sadie Pfeiffer, pictured here, was forty-eight inches tall when Hine captured this image. Introducing middle-class America to the ugly truth about children's working conditions, Hine's photographs, made while on assignment from the National Child Labor Committee, were instrumental in the passage of child labor laws in the United States.'