Lewis Hine
1874–1940

In the early years of the twentieth century, Lewis Hine explored the intersection of sociology, pedagogy, and photography. Following in the footsteps of the Danish journalist Jacob Riis, whose 1890 book How the Other Half Lives documented the conditions in New York slums in words and pictures, Hine believed photography to be a powerful tool for reform and the democratization of knowledge.

After studying sociology and education at the University of Chicago and Columbia University, Hine taught at New York’s Ethical Culture School. In 1904 he began to document immigrants arriving at Ellis Island in photographs that demonstrate their common humanity. He soon became a photographer for numerous charity and social work agencies, as well as for the Pittsburgh Survey, a pioneering sociological investigation of an American industrial city.

In 1908 Hine became a photographer for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC), founded in 1904 to promote legislative reform. The issue of industrialized labor was important to Hine, who had worked twelve-hour days at an upholstery factory before attending the University of Chicago. He spent more than a decade working for the NCLC, traveling the eastern United States photographing children working in mills and factories. He also frequently documented the newsboys, or “newsies,” who sold papers in the street, often from the predawn hours until late into the night. Hine recorded this image on a weekday morning, indicating that these children are most likely not in school—which could lead, as the photograph of three smoking boys demonstrates, to the dangers and adult vices of the harsh city environment.

Introduction

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.