Lewis Hine

Lewis Hine (1874–1940) was an American sociologist and photographer whose pioneering use of the camera as a tool for social reform helped bring about sweeping changes in labor laws and child welfare. Born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, he graduated from the University of Chicago in 1898 and began his career teaching sociology at the Ethical Culture School in New York City. In 1904, he joined the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC) as a photographer and embarked on a decade‑long mission to document the harsh realities faced by thousands of working children across the United States.

Armed with a hand‑cranked Graflex camera, Hine traveled from New England cotton mills and Pennsylvania coal mines to Southern textile factories and Midwestern glassworks. He captured poignant portraits of children as young as six, their small hands grasping heavy tools or their tired faces peering out from factory windows. These images—published in magazines like Harper’s Weekly and presented in Congressional hearings—shocked the public and were instrumental in the passage of the Keating‑Owen Act of 1916, the first federal law restricting child labor. Hine’s rigorous approach combined empathetic portraiture with meticulous captions, ensuring each photograph told a clear, persuasive story.

After World War I, Hine became the principal photographer for the newly formed U.S. Immigration Commission at Ellis Island, where he documented the diverse faces arriving in America and the island’s bustling processing halls. In the 1920s he turned to architectural photography, working on projects for the Rockefeller Center and the Empire State Building, capturing the scale and optimism of the Roaring Twenties. Despite dying in relative obscurity in 1940, Hine’s legacy endured; his body of work laid the groundwork for documentary photography as a force for social change and remains a touchstone for photographers committed to bearing witness through the lens.