Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
Iconic images from founding father of US social photography
The images in Taschen's new book on Lewis W Hine capture the harsh realities of a country undergoing profound transformation, says JOHN GREEN
11:00 A.M. Monday, May 9th, 1910. Newsies at Skeeter’s Branch, Jefferson near Franklin. They were all smoking. St. Louis, Missouri, 1910 [Lewis W Hine]

BORN in 1874 in a small Wisconsin town, Lewis W Hine was forced to become the family’s breadwinner when his father died. After a series of poorly paid jobs, he attended night classes to educate himself and was able to obtain a degree in pedagogy before going on to study sociology.

At a school for deprived children, he came into contact with the practical and technical aspects of photography and,  encouraged to document its activities, began what became a lifelong commitment and passion for revealing the social and working conditions of the labouring classes in the US.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
belladonna
Opinion / 14 August 2026
14 August 2026

BENJAMIN POTHIER suggests that Palaeolithic cave paintings in Spain point to the ceremonial use of hallucinogenic flora

SG 1
Exhibition review / 31 July 2026
31 July 2026

KIM CULLEN enjoys the survey of social work and working-class lives to be found in the superb work of British-Jamaican photographer Sandra George

men
Books / 26 February 2026
26 February 2026

SUE TURNER is fascinated by a book that researches who the largely immigrant workforce were that built the Empire State

THE HORROR REMAINS: (above) ‘The Terror of War’, photograph showing naked Phan Thi Kim Phuc (9 surrounded by brothers and cousins) running down a road near Trang Bang, Vietnam / Pic: Public domain/CC
Culture / 2 January 2026
2 January 2026

If true, the photo’s history is a damning indictment of the systematic exploitation of non-Western journalists by Western media organisations – a pattern that persists today, posit KATE CANTRELL and ALISON BEDFORD