Lewis Hine was born in 1874 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. He started his photography career with the Ethnic Culture School when he moved to New York City to be an assistant teacher in 1901, while also beginning to attend New York University. Around 1904 he was involved in the Ellis Island photography project. He ran the Ethnic Culture School’s Photography club. In 1905 he graduated from New York University in order to pursue a career in sociological photography. In the later part of 1907 Hine enrolled in Columbia University to study sociology
Hine’s first assignment from the National Child Labor Committee was in 1907, to photograph New York tenement homework. The following year The NCLC decided to give him a regular salary and he continued through the country photographing children who were doomed to lose their childhoods to long work days, and work and poor horrible conditions, in order to spread awareness to the public. He photographed Children laboring in Mills, the Newspaper business, mining, working in factories, working in seafood, picking fruit, and other odd jobs. By 1912 he was even giving lectures about it representing the NCLC. In 1917 he left the NCLC to work for the American Red Cross. He went to photograph the effects of war in Europe on Refuges and Civilians until he returned to New York in 1920.
In the 1930s Hine worked on the photography of the Empire State building. This was different from his previous works, in that it showed more a good thing to come rather than the tragic lives of children or terrified and broken people. In 1931 the largest display of art took place in the Yonkers Art Museum. In 1940 Hine died an important hero in the struggle for children’s rights.
