“Photography is an empathy towards the world.”
–Lewis Hine

Lewis Hine was an American teacher, sociologist, and muckraking photographer whose photographs helped expose and end child labor in the United States. Born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Hine took up photography in 1904 to document immigrants arriving at Ellis Island. After attending the Columbia University School of Social Work, Hine began photographing for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC) in 1907. He traveled from Maine to Texas documenting children working in factories, mines, mills, farms, and street trades. Declaring that he “wanted to show things that had to be corrected,” Hine was one of the earliest photographers to use the photograph as a documentary tool. In 1936 Hine was appointed head photographer for the National Research Project of the Works Projects Administration. He died in 1940.