Boys in Cotton Mill, Georgia
Lewis W. Hine, Boys in Cotton Mill, Georgia, ca. 1910, gelatin silver print, Bequest of Fae Heath Batten, public domain, 1997.58.74
This work is not currently on view.
- Title
Boys in Cotton Mill, Georgia
- Artist
- Date
ca. 1910
- Medium
gelatin silver print
- Dimensions (H x W x D)
image/sheet: 4 11/16 in x 6 9/16 in
- Inscriptions & Markings
inscription: "376, graphite, verso; center right
inscription: 376, graphite, verso; lower right
- Collection Area
Photography
- Category
Photographs
- Object Type
photograph
- Culture
American
- Credit Line
Bequest of Fae Heath Batten
- Accession Number
1997.58.74
- Copyright
public domain
- Terms
Between 1906 and 1918, Lewis W. Hine served as an investigative photographer for the National Child Labor Committee, a socially concerned organization working to ban most forms of child labor in the United States. Hine’s job was dangerous, requiring him to enter mills and mines unnoticed or in disguise, his bulky camera hidden beneath his coat. Unlike the idealized, painterly portraits of children made by Pictorialist photographers (contemporaries of Hine’s who strove to depict beauty through photography), Hine’s pictures of young workers are shockingly real, sharply focused, and demonstrative of the destructive effects of hard labor on small bodies. Still, his stark photographs often celebrate the irrepressible vibrancy of youth. Many of his subjects, whether posing in a coal mine or in a factory surrounded by hulking machinery, express pride of purpose and touching innocence.
- Exhibitions
2003 In Varied and Particular Ways: Photographs from a Century of Photography Portland Art Museum
2010 Likeness: Portraiture from the Photography Collection Portland Art Museum
2016 Photography and Contemporary Experience Portland Art Museum
