DOCUMENTARY and

PHOTOJOURNALISM PHOTOGRAPHY

Lewis HineDorothea Lange

Lewis Hine (1874 - 1940)

“If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn't need to lug around a camera.”

•Born in Wisconsin, attended the University of Chicago for a year, and later earned a Masters Degree in education. Came to New York City in 1901, where, a friend hired him to be nature study and geography teacher, and, without any experience, the school photographer for the Ethical Culture School.

•In 1904, began a photographic documentation of immigrants arriving and being processed on Ellis Island – a project he worked on for the next five years.

•As a freelance photographer for the National Child Labor Committee, he traveled widely, photographing (often secretly) children working in the mines, factories, and sweatshops of the eastern U.S. His relentless documentation of child labor mobilized public concern and was instrumental in generating legislative reform.

•Also photographed slum conditions, conditions in various industries, and street trades. By the beginning of World War I, Hine had achieved considerable fame as a photographer, social worker, and reformer.

•During the 1920’s and early 1930’s, photographed the American working class, produced over 1,000 pictures of the construction of the Empire State Building, and returned to Ellis Island to make a new series of photographs of immigrants.

•Work reflects his belief in pictures as communication and his unwavering support and compassion for the young, the poor, the immigrant, and the worker.

Ellis Island

Climbing Into America, Ellis Island (1905)

Russian Jewess, Ellis Island (1905)

Italians at Ellis Island (1905)

Joys and Sorrows on Ellis Island (1905)

                                                     

Child Labor

Girl Worker in Carolina Cotton Mill (1908)

Newsboys and Newsgirl getting Afternoon Papers, Park Row (1910)

Street Child (1910)

Playground in Mill Village (1909)

New York City Tenement (1910)

Men At Workand

The Empire State Building

Powerhouse Mechanic (1920)

Man on Girders, Mooring Mast, Empire State

Building (1931)

Man on Hoisting Ball, Empire State

Building (1931)

Worker on Empire State

Building (1931)

Icarus Atop the Empire State

Building (1931)

Dorothea Lange (1895 - 1965)

“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.”

•Born in New Jersey. Having polio as a young girl left her with a lifelong limp, which she believed heightened her sensitivity to the sufferings of others.

•In 1914, she received her first camera from a portrait photographer on Fifth Avenue. Studied photography at Columbia University from 1917-18. Moved to San Francisco in 1919 and worked as a portrait photographer.

•In 1932, shocked by the number of homeless people in search of work during the Great Depression, she started taking pictures of people in the streets to draw attention to their plight. In 1935, she joined the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and documented the bitter poverty of migrant workers, sharecroppers, and tenant farmers in 22 states of the rural U.S. Her pictures not only showed the hopelessness and despair, but also the pride and dignity with which people endured their circumstances. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1941.

•With the onset of World War II, from 1942-45, Lange worked for the U.S. War Relocation Agency and the Office of War Information. Many of these photographs were lost in transit.

•After several years of poor health, she conducted photo seminars and participated in conferences from 1950-51, worked as a staff photographer for Life in 1954-55, and again as a freelance photographer from 1958-65 in America, Asia, South America, and the Middle East.

•Placed on the Honor Roll of the American Society of Magazine Photographers in 1963 and has had numerous exhibits in major museums around the world. She died of cancer in California in 1965.

Street Demonstration, San Francisco

(1933)

Demonstration Sign, San

Francisco (1934)

White Angel Bread Line (1932)

Hoe Culture (1936)

Cotton Picker (1940)

Jobless on Edge of Pea Field (1937)

Back (1938)

Crossroads Store (1937)

Near Los Angeles, California

(1938)

Ditched, Stalled,

Stranded (1935)

Migrant Family (1936)

Migrant Mother (1936)