About This Artwork

Lewis Wickes Hine
American, 1874–1940

Sadie Pfeifer, a Cotton Mill Spinner, Lancaster, South Carolina, 1908

Gelatin silver print
11.5 x 15.2 cm
Acquired through exchange with George Eastman House, 1959.859

Photography's ability to record people, places, and things has often made it the prized medium for documenting society, from prison mug shots to medical studies to the horrors of child labor. Working for the National Child Labor Committee, Hine used photography as a means to an end, photographing children at work, from lone newsboys to factories full of young laborers. The resulting images were the visual spark to debates about reforming child labor laws. In this, his most famous photograph, a small girl stands before a cotton loom that seems to stretch the length of the room, dwarfing her in scale.

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

AIC, "Photographs by the Score: Personal visions twenty-some years apart," October 7, 2006–January 14, 2007. (David Travis)

AIC, "The Concerned Photographer," March 18–June 11, 2006. (Katherine Bussard, Gregory Harris, and Newell G. Smith)

Publication History

Goldberg, Vicki. 1999. "Lewis W. Hine: Children at Work." Prestal-Verlag. p. 58. (other copy of this print)

Steinorth, Karl. 1996. "Lewis Hine: Passionate Journey: Photographs 1905-1937." George Eastman House/Edition Stemmle. p. 123. (other copy of this print)