A German steelworker in Pittsburgh in 1908. It’s included in the exhibit “Lewis Hine: Pictures of America.”<\/p>\n
As the nation marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence this year, it is important not only to understand where we are and what brought us here, but also to consider from whence we came.<\/p>\n
That perspective informs The Frick Pittsburgh\u2019s decision to present \u201cLewis Hine: Pictures of America.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the intersection of art and history that makes it authentic to the Frick,\u201d said Dawn Bream, chief curator and director of collections.<\/p>\n
The traveling exhibition, on view through May 17, features more than 70 photographs, including Hine\u2019s images of newly arrived immigrants at Ellis Island, working children, steel industry laborers and workers constructing the Empire State Building.<\/p>\n
Driving change<\/p>\n
Born during the Gilded Age in 1874, Hine began seriously working as a photographer in the early 1900s. His career spanned decades marked by rapid industrialization, waves of immigration, urban poverty and the rise of factory labor.<\/p>\n
His work on the Pittsburgh Survey in 1907 and 1908 documented industrial life in the city, and became one of the first large-scale investigations of an American industrial center. Organized by reformers and published through the Russell Sage Foundation, the survey examined working conditions in cigar factories, as well as the steel and glass industries. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a comprehensive sociological study that drove change,\u201d Bream said, noting that many visitors may recognize elements of their own family histories in the images.<\/p>\n
Hine, who worked as a sociologist and educator, taught at New York\u2019s Ethical Culture school. He took his students to Ellis Island, putting human faces on the \u201chuddled masses yearning to breathe free.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cHe never defined himself as an artist and picked up photography as a teaching tool, knowing how to frame images to drive social change by representing reality,\u201d Bream said. Ultimately, Hine is responsible for some of the most iconic images of the 20th century.<\/p>\n
A pioneer of documentary photography, Hine often went to great lengths to expose exploitative labor conditions. While working for the National Child Labor Committee, he posed as a Bible salesman, fire inspector and postcard vendor \u2014 whatever was necessary to gain access. These disguises allowed him to photograph children working in mills, mines, canneries and factories.<\/p>\n
His images helped build public pressure that contributed to major child-labor reforms and, ultimately, the Fair Labor Standards Act, which established a federal minimum wage, overtime rules and restrictions on many forms of child labor.<\/p>\n
The Frick exhibition<\/p>\n
Roughly 70 images are included in the exhibition and \u201cthe ones with the children are the most difficult to view,\u201d Bream said.<\/p>\n
Bream also credits Lauryn Smith, assistant curator at the Frick, with tailoring and rewriting exhibition signage to resonate with regional audiences.<\/p>\n
Modern reproductions have been added to broaden representation within the exhibit. \u201cThe exhibition didn\u2019t have images of breaker boys (who worked in the mines), so we added them as well,\u201d Bream said.<\/p>\n
The exhibition is complemented by tours of Clayton, the home of industrialist and art collector Henry Clay Frick. The award-winning \u201cGilded, Not Golden\u201d tour underscores the stark divide between extreme wealth and working-class hardship during the era Hine documented.<\/p>\n
More than a century later, Hine\u2019s photography endures as a powerful educational tool and historical record. His work stands apart for its empathy. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe humanized the people he photographed and represented them with dignity and care that\u2019s very present in the images,\u201d Bream said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A German steelworker in Pittsburgh in 1908. It’s included in the exhibit “Lewis Hine: Pictures of America.” As…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[62921,62922,62923,73,75,74],"class_list":["post-136541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-frick-pittsburgh","tag-lewis-hine","tag-photographs","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}