National Child Labor Committee - Lewis Hine and The National Child Labor Committee

Lewis Hine and The National Child Labor Committee

In 1908 the National Child Labor Committee hired Lewis Wickes Hine, a sociology professor who advocated photography as an educational medium, to document child labor in American industry. Over the next ten years Hine would publish thousands of photographs designed to pull at the nation's heartstrings.

Hine's subjects included both boys and girls employed by mills and factories all over the United States. For the average American, Hine provided an otherwise unavailable window into the somber working conditions facing America's youth. When asked about his work on the subject Hine simply stated that he "wanted to show things that had to be corrected." Hine's work resulted in a wave of popular support for federal child labor regulations put forward by the NCLC. In effect, Hine's photographs became the face of the National Child Labor Committee, and are among the earliest examples of documentary photography.

Lewis Hine was an influential photo journalist in the years leading up to the First World War. It was during those years that the American economy was doing well, and the need for labor was at an all time high. Cheap labor was necessary, and American businesses were not only looking for immigrant workers but also child labor as well. The factory-oriented jobs were very specific, and a child was a perfect candidate for the work that was necessary. Their small hands and energy was beneficial to the assembly line

There was a shift in thinking in the early 1900s towards an end to child labor. The argument from reformers, as they were called, was that child labor was a sick cycle that was inevitably going to end in a future of poverty for the children in the work force. The long hours were robbing children of not only an education but a childhood as well.

Lewis Hine became an investigative photojournalist for the National Child Labor Committee in the early 1900s.

Hine took many pictures of workers under the age of 16 in the field. It is his pictures that appear in many books on the history of child labor. His photographs were taken in high risk situations in order to capture the negative side of child labor. His photographs also helped make the National Child Labor Committee investigate the child labor that was taking place in many of America's factories. "Hine was clever enough to bluff his way into many plants. He searched where he was not welcome, snapped scenes that were meant to be hidden from the public. At times, he was in real danger, risking physical attack when factory managers realized what he was up to…he put his life in the line in order to record a truthful picture of working children in early twentieth-century America" Now there is a Lewis Hine awards that awards 10 honorees in their outstanding work in servicing young people. Each winner wins 1,000 dollars and a trip to New York to attend the awards ceremony.