Lewis Wickes Hine (September 26, 1874 – November 3, 1940) was an American
sociologist and
muckraker photographer. His photographs were instrumental in bringing about the passage of the first
child labor laws in the United States
Child labor laws in the United States address issues related to the employment and welfare of working children in the United States. The most sweeping federal law that restricts the employment and abuse of child workers is the Fair Labor Standar ...
.
Early life
Hine was born in
Oshkosh, Wisconsin, on September 26, 1874. After his father was killed in an accident, Hine began working and saved his money for a college education. He studied sociology at the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
,
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
and
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, th ...
. He became a teacher in New York City at the
Ethical Culture School
Ethical Culture Fieldston School (ECFS), also referred to as Fieldston, is a private independent school in New York City. The school is a member of the Ivy Preparatory School League. The school serves approximately 1,700 students with 480 facul ...
, where he encouraged his students to use photography as an educational medium.
![Brooklyn Museum - Climbing into the Promised Land Ellis Island - Lewis Wickes Hine](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Brooklyn_Museum_-_Climbing_into_the_Promised_Land_Ellis_Island_-_Lewis_Wickes_Hine.jpg)
Hine led his sociology classes to
Ellis Island
Ellis Island is a federally owned island in New York Harbor, situated within the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, that was the busiest immigrant inspection and processing station in the United States. From 1892 to 1954, nearly 12 mil ...
in
New York Harbor, photographing the thousands of immigrants who arrived each day. Between 1904 and 1909, Hine took over 200 plates (photographs) and came to the realization that documentary photography could be employed as a tool for social change and reform.
[
]
Documentary photography
In 1907, Hine became the staff photographer of the Russell Sage Foundation; he photographed life in the steel-making districts and people of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...
, Pennsylvania, for the influential sociological study called The Pittsburgh Survey
''The Pittsburgh Survey'' (1907–1908) was a pioneering sociological study of the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States funded by the Russell Sage Foundation of New York City. It is widely considered a landmark of the Progressive Era re ...
.
In 1908, Hine became the photographer for the National Child Labor Committee
The National Child Labor Committee (NCLC) was a private, non-profit organization in the United States that served as a leading proponent for the national child labor reform movement. Its mission was to promote "the rights, awareness, dignity, well ...
(NCLC), leaving his teaching position. Over the next decade, Hine documented child labor, with focus on the use of child labor in the Carolina Piedmont
The Piedmont is a plateau region located in the Eastern United States. It is situated between the Atlantic coastal plain and the main Appalachian Mountains, stretching from New York in the north to central Alabama in the south. The Piedmo ...
, to aid the NCLC's lobbying efforts to end the practice. In 1913, he documented child laborers among cotton mill workers with a series of Francis Galton's composite portrait
Composite portraiture (also known as composite photographs) is a technique invented by Sir Francis Galton in the 1880s after a suggestion by Herbert Spencer for registering photographs of human faces on the two eyes to create an "average" photogra ...
s.
Hine's work for the NCLC was often dangerous. As a photographer, he was frequently threatened with violence or even death by factory police and foremen. At the time, the immorality of child labor was meant to be hidden from the public. Photography was not only prohibited but also posed a serious threat to the industry. To gain entry to the mills, mines and factories, Hine was forced to assume many guises. At times he was a fire inspector, postcard
A postcard or post card is a piece of thick paper or thin cardboard, typically rectangular, intended for writing and mailing without an envelope. Non-rectangular shapes may also be used but are rare. There are novelty exceptions, such as wood ...
vendor, bible salesman, or even an industrial photographer making a record of factory machinery.
During and after World War I, he photographed American Red Cross relief work in Europe. In the 1920s and early 1930s, Hine made a series of "work portraits," which emphasized the human contribution to modern industry. In 1930, Hine was commissioned to document the construction of the Empire State Building. He photographed the workers in precarious positions while they secured the steel framework of the structure, taking many of the same risks that the workers endured. To obtain the best vantage points, Hine was swung out in a specially-designed basket 1,000 ft above Fifth Avenue. At times, he remembered, he hung above the city with nothing below but "a sheer drop of nearly a quarter-mile."
During the Great Depression Hine again worked for the Red Cross, photographing drought relief in the American South, and for the Tennessee Valley Authority
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolin ...
(TVA), documenting life in the mountains of eastern Tennessee. He also served as chief photographer for the Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...
's National Research Project, which studied changes in industry and their effect on employment. Hine was also a faculty member of the Ethical Culture Fieldston School
Ethical Culture Fieldston School (ECFS), also referred to as Fieldston, is a private independent school in New York City. The school is a member of the Ivy Preparatory School League. The school serves approximately 1,700 students with 480 facult ...
.
Later life
In 1936, Hine was selected as the photographer for the National Research Project of the Works Projects Administration, but his work there was not completed.
The last years of his life were filled with professional struggles by loss of government and corporate patronage. Hine hoped to join the Farm Security Administration photography project, but despite writing repeatedly to Roy Stryker
Roy Emerson Stryker (November 5, 1893 – September 27, 1975) was an American economist, government official, and photographer. He headed the Information Division of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) during the Great Depression, and launc ...
, Stryker always refused. Few people were interested in his work, past or present, and Hine lost his house and applied for welfare. He died on November 3, 1940, at Dobbs Ferry Hospital in Dobbs Ferry, New York
Dobbs Ferry is a village in Westchester County, New York, United States. The population was 10,875 according to the 2010 United States Census. In 2019, its population rose to an estimated 11,027. The village of Dobbs Ferry is located in, and is a p ...
, after an operation. He was 66 years old.
Legacy
Hine's photographs supported the NCLC's lobbying to end child labor, and in 1912 the Children's Bureau was created. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938
The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) is a United States labor law that creates the right to a minimum wage, and " time-and-a-half" overtime pay when people work over forty hours a week. It also prohibits employment of minors in "opp ...
eventually brought child labour in the US to an end.
After Hine's death, his son Corydon donated his prints and negatives to the Photo League
The Photo League was a cooperative of photographers in New York who banded together around a range of common social and creative causes. Founded in 1936, the League included some of the most noted American photographers of the mid-20th century amon ...
, which was dismantled in 1951. The Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
was offered his pictures and did not accept them, but the George Eastman Museum
The George Eastman Museum, also referred to as ''George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film'', the world's oldest museum dedicated to photography and one of the world's oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949 in ...
did.
In 2006, author Elizabeth Winthrop Alsop's historical fiction middle-grade novel, ''Counting on Grace'' was published by Wendy Lamb Books
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...
. The latter chapters center on 12-year-old Grace and her life-changing encounter with Hine, during his 1910 visit to a Vermont cotton mill known to have many child laborers. On the cover is the iconic photo of Grace's real-life counterpart, Addie Card (1897–1993), taken during Hine's undercover visit to the Pownal Cotton Mill.
In 2016, ''Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
'' published colorized versions of several of Hine's photographs of child labor in the US.
Collections
Hine's work is held in the following public collections:
* Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
* Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County
The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) is a public research university in Baltimore County, Maryland. It has a fall 2022 enrollment of 13,991 students, 61 undergraduate majors, over 92 graduate programs (38 master, 25 doctoral, ...
– almost five thousand NCLC photographs
*George Eastman Museum
The George Eastman Museum, also referred to as ''George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film'', the world's oldest museum dedicated to photography and one of the world's oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949 in ...
– thousands of photographs and negatives
*Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...
– over 5,000 photographs, including examples of Hine's child labor and Red Cross photographs, his work portraits, and his WPA and TVA images.
* New York Public Library, New York
*International Photography Hall of Fame
The International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum in St. Louis, Missouri honors those who have made great contributions to the field of photography.
History
In 1977 the first Hall of Fame and Museum opened in Santa Barbara, California and a ...
, St.Louis, MO
Notable photographs
*''Child Labor: Girls in Factory''
*''Breaker Boys'' (1910)
*''Young Doffer
A doffer is someone who removes ("doffs") bobbins, pirns or spindles holding spun fiber such as cotton or wool from a spinning frame and replaces them with empty ones. Historically, spinners, doffers, and sweepers each had separate tasks that w ...
s in the Elk Cotton Mills'' (1910)
*''Steam Fitter'' (1920)
*''Workers, Empire State Building'' (1931)
Gallery
File:Baseball glass workers2.jpg, Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...
team composed mostly of child laborers from a glassmaking factory. Indiana (1908)
File:Hine, Lewis, Adolescent Girl, a Spinner, in a Carolina Cotton Mill, 1908.jpg, ''Adolescent Girl, a Spinner, in a Carolina Cotton Mill'' (1908) Princeton University Art Museum
The Princeton University Art Museum (PUAM) is the Princeton University gallery of art, located in Princeton, New Jersey. With a collecting history that began in 1755, the museum was formally established in 1882, and now houses over 113,000 works o ...
Image:AddieCard05282vLewisHine.jpg, "Addie Card, 12 years. Spinner in North Pormal (i.e., Pownal) Cotton Mill. Vt.", 1910.
File:Pennsylvania coal breakers, (Breaker Boys), 1912.jpg, ''Breaker Boy
A breaker boy was a coal-mining worker in the United StatesHindman, Hugh D. ''Child Labor: An American History.'' Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2002. and United Kingdom whose job was to separate impurities from coal by hand in a coal breaker. Altho ...
s in a Pennsylvania Coal Mine'', 1911
File:Old_timer_structural_worker2.jpg, Empire State Building worker in 1931
File:Raising the Mast Empire State Building by Lewis W Hine.jpeg, ''Raising the Mast, Empire State Building'' (1932)
See also
*''House Calls
A house call is medical consultation performed by a doctor or other healthcare professionals visiting the home of a patient or client, instead of the patient visiting the doctor's clinic or hospital. In some locations, families used to pay due ...
'' (2006 film), a documentary about physician and photographer Mark Nowaczynski, who was inspired by Hine to photograph elderly patients.
References
Further reading
* Freedman, Russell. ''Kids at work: Lewis Hine and the crusade against child labor'' (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1994).
* Macieski, Robert. ''Picturing class: Lewis W. Hine photographs child labor in New England'' (2015
online
* Sampsell-Willmann, Kate. ''Lewis Hine as social critic'' (Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2009)
excerpt
External links
Lewis Wickes Hine
, University of Illinois
Photographs of Lewis Hine: Documentation of Child Labor
, National Archives
David Joseph Marcou, 'Lewis Wickes Hine, 1874–1940: A Biographical Essay, with Photographs by Lewis Wickes Hine
, University of Missouri
The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus University of Missouri System. MU was founded in ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hine, Lewis Wickes
20th-century American photographers
American portrait photographers
Social documentary photographers
American sociologists
Child labor in the United States
People of the New Deal arts projects
Progressive Era in the United States
Works Progress Administration workers
Columbia University alumni
University of Chicago alumni
New York University alumni
People from Oshkosh, Wisconsin
Photographers from Wisconsin
1874 births
1940 deaths