16 Facts About Lewis Hine

1.

Lewis Wickes Hine was an American sociologist and muckraker photographer.

2.

Lewis Hine's photographs were instrumental in bringing about the passage of the first child labor laws in the United States.

3.

Lewis Hine studied sociology at the University of Chicago, Columbia University and New York University.

4.

Lewis Hine became a teacher in New York City at the Ethical Culture School, where he encouraged his students to use photography as an educational medium.

5.

Lewis Hine led his sociology classes to Ellis Island in New York Harbor, photographing the thousands of immigrants who arrived each day.

6.

Between 1904 and 1909, Lewis Hine took over 200 plates and came to the realization that documentary photography could be employed as a tool for social change and reform.

7.

In 1907, Lewis Hine became the staff photographer of the Russell Sage Foundation; he photographed life in the steel-making districts and people of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for the influential sociological study called The Pittsburgh Survey.

8.

In 1908, Lewis Hine became the photographer for the National Child Labor Committee, leaving his teaching position.

9.

In 1930, Lewis Hine was commissioned to document the construction of the Empire State Building.

10.

Lewis Hine photographed the workers in precarious positions while they secured the steel framework of the structure, taking many of the same risks that the workers endured.

11.

Lewis Hine served as chief photographer for the Works Progress Administration's National Research Project, which studied changes in industry and their effect on employment.

12.

Lewis Hine was a faculty member of the Ethical Culture Fieldston School.

13.

In 1936, Lewis Hine was selected as the photographer for the National Research Project of the Works Projects Administration, but his work there was not completed.

14.

Lewis Hine hoped to join the Farm Security Administration photography project, but despite writing repeatedly to Roy Stryker, Stryker always refused.

15.

Lewis Hine died on November 3,1940, at Dobbs Ferry Hospital in Dobbs Ferry, New York, after an operation.

16.

Lewis Hine's photographs supported the NCLC's lobbying to end child labor, and in 1912 the Children's Bureau was created.