Masters of Photography part IV

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Lewis Hine (1874-1940) was an American sociologist and photographer. Hine used his camera as a tool for social reform. His photographs were instrumental in changing the child labor laws in the United States.


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. The classes traveled to Ellis Island in New York Harbor, photographing the thousands of immigrants who arrived each day. Between 1904-1909, Hine took over 200 plates (photographs), and eventually came to the realization that documentary photography could be employed as a tool to effectuate social change and reform. In 1906, Hine became the staff photographer of the Russell Sage Foundation. Here Hine photographed life in the steel-making districts and people of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1908, he became the photographer for the National Child Labor Committee, leaving his teaching position. Over the next decade, Hine documented child labor in American industry to aid the NCLC's lobbying efforts to end the practice. During and after WW 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. 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. (Wikipedia)

Quotes:
"If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn't need to lug around a camera"
"While photographs may not lie, liars may photograph"



See also: Part I thestreetjournal.deviantart.co… Part II thestreetjournal.deviantart.co… III thestreetjournal.deviantart.co…
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