Lewis Hine and American Progressive Social Reform

Lewis Wickes Hine was one of the inheritors of Riis's reform mantle. But Hine extended Riis's work outside the urban framework; he followed the tendrils of poverty and social disfunction back along economic, social, class and geographical lines, and outward to their consequences. As a result, one might find a picture of a longleaf pine tree needles photographed somewhere in the South, as part of a larger project detailing the entire turpentine industry, with its attendant child labor, company towns, and the movement from raw materials to finished product.

Hine's career spanned five distinct periods:

• The early photographs, made while he was a teacher at the Ethical Culture School, mainly of immigrants at Ellis Island:
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• Lewis Hine, " Young Russian Jewess, Ellis Island," ca. 1905.

• Lewis Hine, "Climbing into America, Ellis Island," ca. 1905

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• Lewis Hine, "Italian Family Looking for Lost Baggage, Ellis Island," ca. 1905

• The professional reform work, made for a variety of clients and publications, but eventually dominated by his work for the National Child Labor Committee (the NCLC)
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• Lewis Hine, "Danny Mercurio, newsboy, 150 Scholes Alley, Washington, DC, 1912"

• Lewis Hine, "Young Boy Picking Cotton," ca. 1912

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• National Child Labor Committee Exhibit for the Pan-American Exposition, 1915, showing Hine's pictures in posters and placards.

• the work done for the Red Cross during World War II

• the '20s work, in which he attempted to continue his reform photography while also embracing a more celebratory posture toward American capitalism
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• Lewis Hine, "Mechanic at Steam Pump," 1920

• the last work, in which his work with the construction of the Empire State Building segues into the work he did for a variety of Depression-era reform organizations, government agencies, and publications.
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• Lewis Hine, "Icarus atop the Empire State Building," ca. 1930

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• Lewis Hine, "Icarus Atop the Empire State Building [alternative view requiring careful posing by worker]," ca. 1930

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• Lewis Hine, "Man Atop Girders [Empire State Building]," ca. 1930-32 .

Hine's photographs are found in a variety of archives, but perhaps the richest is that of the George Eastman House, which was the recipient of the Photo League's collection of Hine's pictures and negative. Access to the archive online is found at: http://www.geh.org/photographers.html where his work is divided into relevant periods.