Lewis Hines Fights Corporate America
Hine knew the powerful story a photograph could tell. He used his camera to expose the conditions of child laborers, from newsboys to piecework assemblers, food production, to mining and heavy machinery operation. He called his work “photo-interpretations,” acknowledging that he had a “subjective involvement” with his subjects, empathizing with their plight. If the public could see the conditions of child labor, he believed they would demand change. Hines’ work for the National Child Labor Committee resulted in changes to child labor laws. In 1916, the Keating-Owens Child Labor Act passed through Congress, establishing the first labor laws for children, including a minimum age of fourteen for manufacturing work, no night work for those under sixteen, and no more than an eight-hour workday for children. The Library of Congress compiled Hines’ work, some 5,100 prints and 355 glass negatives, for the NCLC, resulting in a shocking exhibition, excerpted here.