Lewis Hine (1874-1940)

Like Riis, Lewis Hine (1874-1940) was based in New York and sought to illustrate the working conditions of the environment by the working class. He also focused on the plight of immigrants to America. Whereas Riis presented the urban poor as helpless victims, Hine was committed to social change. He was an educator who had studied sociology and become a teacher. He became a full-time photographer when he was hired by the National Child Labour Committee in 1908 to travel around America for four years documenting and providing evidence of the working and social conditions of children. Hine was more than sympathetic to the cause and used the setting of the people in his images in a way that endorsed the  points he had and the committee was making. he wanted to see labour law reform and felt that he could help achieve this by shedding some light on the plight and daily struggle of previously 'invisible' people like immigrants and child workers.

Two boys working on a Loom in Massachusets - Lewis Hine

Industrial conditions of the time were similar to those in Britain. It was a very long working week. the owners of some of the large companies that had sprung up built houses for the workers and the workers purchased everything from the company store. Some bosses hired whole families - the men for heavy work, the women and children for lighter work. If your employment was terminated you had nowhere to go so you had to put up with whatever was inflicted on you and not complain. thre were no unions and the boss's word was law. Hine used photography to illustrate and document what he felt was social injustice. So whilst in some respects Hine followed the path of the artist as photographer he had a specific social agenda.

The spinning room at Carver Mill - Lewis Hine

Hine was also aware of the dangerous nature of the high rise race - the pace that buildings were going up in New York and the number of fatalities that were involved. The industry guideline at the time was that there should be no more that one death per floor - the Empire State Building has 102 floors. Whilst the images below has an almost relaxed feel, the start background and the drop below reveal the danger that these workers were exposed to.

Building the Empire State Building 1931 - Lewis Hine

A famous Hine image

Both Riis and Hine made their social reforming images more widely available through magic lantern shows, arguably the YouTube of the time, with the aim of reaching a middle-class audience with some political influence.

When I consider the styles of both Hine and Riis, both have taken images of the visibly impovorised poor but Hine's images were usually of people working and included them using their tools of the trade and were often in a portrait style. Riis's images were more of the environment people were in, showing the overcrowding with people often looking next to deaths door. Riis's images captured people in groups in their situation.