Lewis Hine
Lewis Wickes Hine (September 26, 1874, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, United States - November 3, 1940, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York), was an American photographer. For Hine, the camera was both a research tool and an instrument of social reform.
Early life
He was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin in 1874. After his father died in an accident when Hine was 18, he began working and saved his money for a college education. Hine studied sociology at the University of Chicago, Columbia University and New York University. He became a teacher in New York City, at the Ethical Culture School, where he encouraged his students to use photography as an educational medium.[1] The classes traveled to Ellis Island in New York Harbor, photographing the thousands of immigrants who arrived each day. Between 1904 to 1909, Hine took over 200 plates(photographs), and eventually came to the realization that his vocation was in photojounalism.[2]
Photojournalism
In 1908, he became the photographer for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC). Over the next decade, Hine documented child labor in American industry to aid the NCLC's lobbying efforts to end the practice. Between 1906 and 1908, he was a freelance photographer for The Survey, a leading social reform magazine.
In 1908, Hine photographed life in the steel-making districts and people of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for the influential sociological study called The Pittsburgh Survey. During and after World War I, he documented 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, Lewis Hine was commissioned to document the building of The Empire State Building. Hine photographed the workers in precarious positions while they secured the iron and steel framework of the structure, taking many of the same risks the workers endured. In order to obtain the best vantage points, Hine was swung out in a specially designed basket 1,000 feet above Fifth Avenue.[3]
During the Great Depression, he again worked for the Red Cross, photographing drought relief in the American South, and for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), documenting life in the mountains of eastern Tennessee. He also served as chief photographer for the Works Progress Administration's (WPA) National Research Project, which studied changes in industry and their effect on employment. Hine was also a member of the faculty of the Ethical Culture Fieldston School.
The National Archives holds nearly 2,000 Hine photographs, including examples of his child labor and Red Cross photographs, his work portraits, and his WPA and TVA images.
Later life
In 1936 Hine was selected as the head photographer for the National Research Project of the Works Projects Administration, but his work there was never completed. The last years of his life were filled with professional struggles due to loss of government and corporate patronage. He died in 1940 at age sixty-six.[4]
Notable photographs
- Steam Fitter, 1920.
- Workers, Empire State Building, 1931.
- Child Labor: Girls in Factory, 1908.
References
- ^ Lewis Hine and His Photo Stories: Visual Culture and Social Reform, DEBORAH L. SMITH-SHANK, Art Education 56 no2 33-7 Mr 2003
- ^ http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/spe/art/photo/hinex/empire/biography.html New York Public Library
- ^ http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/spe/art/photo/hinex/empire/about.html New York Public Library
- ^ http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=1601&page=1