Among the most influential artist-activists in photographic history, Lewis Hine deployed the camera as an instrument of social change. Commissioned by social welfare agencies, he traveled the country to record the harsh conditions under which immigrants and children lived and labored. From 1908 to 1913, he worked as an investigative photographer for the National Child Labor Committee, documenting children working in mills, factories, canneries, mines, and agricultural fields across America. His compelling images ultimately helped to establish child labor laws in the United States.
From the 1920s onward, Hine produced studies of industrial workers, memorializing their dignity, courage, tenacity, and perseverance. These portraits came to be known collectively as Men at Work, a documentation of the positive aspects of the Machine Age. In 1930, he was hired to record the construction of the Empire State Building in Midtown Manhattan. Over the year it took to complete, he traced the human footprint in the development of what became an American symbol of progress against the backdrop of the Great Depression. This image of a hoister highlights the man’s strength and utter focus on the task at hand, oblivious to his precarious position atop a platform at a dizzying height.
Hine coined the term “photo-story,” precursor of the photo-essay, to describe his work as an investigative photographer, in which he combined image and text. A keen observer, he captioned his images with detailed information about the subject’s context. “The average person believes implicitly that the photograph cannot falsify,” Hine explained. “Of course, you and I know that this unbounded faith in the integrity of the photograph is often rudely shaken, for, while photographs may not lie, liars may photograph.” Hine left a resounding impact on the worlds of journalism and art, pioneering a new form of storytelling that today we call photojournalism.
Eve Schillo
2024
