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Melville Mfg. Co., Cherryville, N.C. View of spinning room.  Location: Cherryville, North Carolina / Photo by Lewis W. Hine.

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Melville Mfg. Co., Cherryville, N.C. View of spinning room. Location: Cherryville, North Carolina / Photo by Lewis W. Hine.

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Summary

Picryl description: Public domain image of a factory, plant, manufacture, assembly line, industrial facility, early 20th-century industrial architecture, free to use, no copyright restrictions.

Hine grew up in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. As a young man he had to care for himself, and working at a furniture factory gave him first-hand knowledge of industrial workers' harsh reality. Eight years later he matriculated at the University of Chicago and met Professor Frank A. Manny, whom he followed to New York to teach at the Ethical Culture School and continue his studies at New York University. As a faculty member at the Ethical Culture School Hine was introduced to photography. From 1904 until his death he documented a series of sites and conditions in the USA and Europe. In 1906 he became a photographer and field worker for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC). Undercover, disguised among other things as a Bible salesman or photographer for post-cards or industry, Hine went into American factories. His research methodology was based on photographic documentation and interviews. Together with the NCLC he worked to place the working conditions of two million American children onto the political agenda. The NCLC later said that Hine's photographs were decisive in the 1938 passage of federal law governing child labor in the United States. In 1918 Hine left the NCLC for the Red Cross and their work in Europe. After a short period as an employee, he returned to the United States and began as an independent photographer. One of Hine's last major projects was the series Men at Work, published as a book in 1932. It is a homage to the worker that built the country, and it documents such things as the construction of the Empire State Building. In 1940 Hine died abruptly after several years of poor income and few commissions. Even though interest in his work was increasing, it was not until after his death that Hine was raised to the stature of one of the great photographers in the history of the medium.

Lewis Hine (1874–1940) was trained to be an educator in Chicago and New York. A project photographing on Ellis Island with students from the Ethical Culture School in New York galvanized his recognition of the value of documentary photography in education. Soon after, he became a sociological photographer, establishing a studio in upstate New York in 1912. For nearly ten years Hine was the photographer for the National Child Labor Committee, contributing to exhibitions and the organization's publication, The Survey. Declaring that he "wanted to show things that had to be corrected," he was one of the earliest photographers to use the photograph as a documentary tool.

date_range

Date

01/01/1908
person

Contributors

Hine, Lewis Wickes, 1874-1940, photographer
place

Location

Cherryville (N.C.)35.37861, -81.37889
Google Map of 35.37861111111111, -81.37888888888888
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Source

Library of Congress
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Copyright info

No known restrictions on publication.

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