Lewis Hine was an American sociologist and photographer, who used his camera as a tool for social reform, more specifically reform of the child labor laws within the United States. After studying sociology at the University of Chicago, Columbia University and New York University, he became a teacher in New York City where he encouraged his students to use photography as an educational medium. His class would travel to Ellis Island between 1904-1909 to photograph the thousands of immigrants who arrived each day. After doing this Hine eventually realized that photography could be used as an effective tool for social reform.
In 1908, he became the photographer for the National Child labor Committee and left his teaching position. Then for the next ten years Hine documented child labor, this was to help the committee's aim to end child labor all together. This task of documenting the children's conditions was quite dangerous with him receiving many threats from the factory police and security. Photography was not allowed within the factories due to the immortality of child labor at the time being hidden from the public, this was because if found out it could impact the industry hugely. This resulted in Hine having to disguise himself in different roles included a fire inspector, post card vendor and so on.
Hine documented many other events in his time being a photographer but I'm focusing on him just for his photographs he produced capturing child labor. These photographs are relevant to my work because they capture a portrait of the subject within their place of work, which is exactly what I'm doing for my project on cultural diversity of Manchester. Something I can take from Hines work is that he has made an effort to capture the subject in such a composition where its obvious what industry the child is working in. This is something I failed with one of my last portraits in China Town, and I believe it to be very important to the effect of the portrait because it provides the viewer with more information on the person they are viewing. Something else that Hine is very good at is capturing what looks and feels like an authentic portrait, in which he shows the subjects true emotions at the time. This could be from spending time talking to the subject, or maybe in those times people weren't as fixated on poses for the camera like they are now. I think another reason which is more likely for why the portraits are authentic, is because the children are in such dire conditions they wouldn't have it in built into them to pose for a photograph. I believe their natural look of being frightened and worried comes across heavily in these portraits, which helps Hine in the removal of child labor.
