We recently completed work at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County Special Collections, where I am chief curator large digitization and relocation project our collection of over 5,400 photographs taken by Lewis Wikes Hine at the beginning of the 20th century.
Traveling around the country with his camera, Hine captured the often arduous working conditions of thousands of children – some as young as 3 years old.
As I have been working on this collection for the past two years, the social and political implications of Hine’s photographs have been very much on my mind. The patina of these black-and-white photographs suggests a bygone era – an embarrassing past that many Americans might imagine they have left behind.
But with numerous reports With violations related to child labormany of which involved immigrants, occurred in the US as their numbers increased state legislation withdrawal of the legal working ageit’s clear that Hine’s work is as relevant today as it was a hundred years ago.
“Investigators with a camera”
Hine, a sociologist by training, began taking photographs in 1903 while working as a teacher at the progressive School of Ethical Culture in New York.
From 1903 to 1908, he and his students photographed migrants on Ellis Island. Hine believed that the future of the United States rested on its identity as an immigrant nation – a position he contrasted with growing xenophobic fears.
Based on this work National Committee on Child Laborwhich advocated for child labor laws, hired Hine to document the living and working conditions of American children.
Gelatin-silver print. 5 x 7 in. Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (P148), CC BY-SA
By the end of the 19th century, several states had already passed regulations limiting the age of working children and setting maximum working hours. But at the turn of the century the number of working children has increased – in the years 1890–1910, 18% of children aged 10 to 15 worked.
Working for the National Child Labor Committee, Hine traveled to farms and mills in the industrial South and to the streets and factories of the Northeast. He I used the Graflex camera with 5-by-7-inch glass plate negatives and flash powder for night and interior photos, carrying over 50 pounds of equipment on its diminutive frame.
To gain access to factories and other facilities, Hine sometimes disguised himself as a Bible, postcard, or insurance salesman. Other times, he waited outside to catch workers arriving or leaving their shifts.
In addition to photographic documentation, Hine collected personal stories of his subjects, including their ages and ethnicities. He documented their working lives, such as their typical working hours and any injuries and ailments they suffered as a result of their work.
Hine, who considered himself “researcher with camera” used this information to create what he called a “photo story” – a combination of images and text that could be used in posters, public lectures, and published reports to help the organization achieve its mission.
Collections of the National Committee on Child Labor, Library of Congress, Division of Prints and Photographs
Legislation follows
Hine’s photos of dirty people exemplify the genre documentary photographywhich relies on the perceived truthfulness of photography to justify social change.
The camera is an eyewitness to a social disease, a problem that requires a solution. Hine portrayed his characters directly, usually frontally, looking straight into the camera, against the background of the factories, fields or cities in which they worked.
Capturing the details of his caregivers’ bare feet, tattered clothes, dirty faces and hands, and diminutive stature against the backdrop of massive industrial equipment, Hine made a direct statement about the poor conditions and precariousness of these children’s lives.
Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (P2904), CC BY-SA
Hine’s photographs make an effective argument for child labor reform.
Notably, the efforts of the National Child Labor Committee resulted in Congress’ establishment Children’s Bureau in 1912 and passing Keating-Owen Act in 1916, which limited child labor hours and prohibited interstate sales of goods produced by child labor.
Though The Supreme Court later ruled this and the subsequent Child Labor Tax Act of 1919 were unconstitutional, an impetus arose to provide protection for child workers. In 1938, Congress passed Fair Labor Standards Actwhich establishes restrictions and protections regarding the employment of children.
The National Child Labor Committee’s project also included supporting the enforcement of existing child labor laws, a regulatory issue that resurfaced today when the Department of Labor – the agency tasked with enforcing labor laws – comes under fire for failing to protect working children.
Lewis Wickes Hine/Library of Congress via Getty Images
The ethics of imagining child labor
The recent increase in the number of unaccompanied minors, mostly from Central America, has brought new attention to America’s old child labor problem and threatened the laws that Hine and the National Child Labor Committee worked to pass.
Some estimates suggest one third of migrants are under 18 years of age they work illegallyregardless of whether it is working more hours than permitted by applicable law or working without the appropriate permits. Many of them perform dangerous jobs similar to those of Hine’s characters: they operate dangerous equipment and are exposed to harmful chemicals in factories, slaughterhouses and factory farms.
While the content of Hine’s photographs remains relevant to today’s child labor crisis, the key difference between the subject of Hine’s photographs and today’s working children is race.
Hine focused his camera almost exclusively on white children who arrived in this country during waves of immigration from Europe at the turn of the 20th century. As art historian Natalie Zelt saysHine’s painterly treatment of black children—ignored or relegated to the margins of his paintings—suggested to viewers that the face of childhood in America was white by default.
The perceived racial hierarchies of Hine’s era resonate in the present, where underage migrants of color live and work on the margins of society.
Jane Tyska/Digital First Media/East Bay Times via Getty Images
Contemporary reports cases of violations related to child labor contains several photos accompanying the texts, charts and statistics. There are valid reasons for this. By not posting identifying information or portraits, news outlets protect a vulnerable population. Ethical guidelines they do not agree to reveal private details about the lives of children interviewed. As Hine’s experience shows, infiltrating places where labor violations are occurring can be difficult because they are usually safe.
The solution is digital cameras and smartphones. Since 2015, the International Labor Organization – he called on children working in Burma become “young activists” and use their own images and words to create “photostories” – echoing Hine’s use of the term – which the organization could then disseminate.
Photographs of child labor abroad are much more common than those taken in the U.S., giving the impression that child labor is someone else’s problem, not ours. Perhaps it is too difficult for Americans to look this national issue squarely in the eye.
A similar effect can be observed today when viewing Hine’s photographs. Although originally appreciated for their directness, they can seem to belong to the distant past.
But if Hine’s photo archive of working children is proof of photography’s influence on public opinion, does the lack of photos in today’s reporting – even if it is loftily intended – cause a disconnect?
Can society understand the harmful consequences of a lack of labor law enforcement when the faces of those affected are missing from the picture?
