American Born, 1874

A native of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Lewis Hine was inspired as a young man to document life. Spurred by an interest in social reform, he accepted a teaching position at the Ethical Culture Association in New York City in 1898 and in 1905 began his first photographic documentary series. The great influx of immigrants into America through Ellis Island served as this first series and, after seeing his work progress, Hine chose to resign as a teacher and devote his time to photography.

Hine began photographing for the National Child Labor Committee where his photographs of children in deplorable working conditions dramatized the tradgedy of child labor. These images became instrumental in the passage of child labor laws and were perhaps the first photographs to actually lead to social change.

In 1918 Hine took a break from photographing child labor to spend a year documenting the war in Europe for the American Red Cross. Upon returning, he worked documenting the construction of the Empire State Building capturing steel workers at great heights in ways not previously done before. He continued work for the Red Cross into the 1920s as well as working on the National Research Project of the W.P.A.