In Photos: Celebrating the Work of Lewis Hine

Pennsylvania coal breakers (breaker boys), 1912

Breaker boys would separate impurities from coal by hand. ‘There is work that profits children, and there is work that brings profit only to employers. The object of employing children is not to train them, but to get high profits from their work,’ said Lewis Hine

Powerhouse mechanic, circa 1921

In one of Hine’s most famous images, he emphasizes machinery and musculature. ‘The visual appeal of the photo is rather direct and stunning,’ Daile Kaplan, vice-president of photographs at Swann galleries, told The Hot Bid. ‘It has harmony, it has visual balance, and at the same time, he positions the worker in a way that he’s controlling the machine. It reflects a new visual vocabulary that addresses the machine age, but it privileges the person with the machine’