Italian Family Seeking Lost Baggage, Ellis Island

Photography and Media

1905

Lewis Wickes Hine
American, 1874–1940

Beginning in 1905, Lewis Hine began trekking to Ellis Island to photograph immigrants entering America through the New York port. His purpose was to show newcomers to the United States as dignified individuals rather than anonymous masses of foreigners, as the press frequently portrayed them. Hine went on to develop a form of documentary photography that advanced social reform and at times even resulted in changes to the law, as seen most famously in his images of child labor. In this photograph of an Italian family, Hine likened the mother to a Madonna figure, employing Renaissance art to evoke the sympathy of his viewers.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Photography and Media

Artist: Lewis Wickes Hine
Title: Italian Family Seeking Lost Baggage, Ellis Island
Place: United States (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: Made 1905
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Inscriptions: Unmarked recto; inscribed verso, upper center, in graphite: "6 [encircled]"
Dimensions: Image: 17.4 × 12.5 cm (6 7/8 × 4 15/16 in.); Paper: 19.6 × 17 cm (7 3/4 × 6 3/4 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of David Vestal
Reference Number: 1965.349
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/23347/manifest.json

Art Institute of Chicago, “The Portrait Photograph,” January 1-March 2, 1975.
Art Institute of Chicago, “Master Photographers from the Permanent Collection,” February 14-June 10, 1984.
Greensboro, North Carolina, Weatherspoon Art Museum, The University of North Carolina, “Priceless Children: American Photographs 1890-1925 -Child Labour and the Pictorial Ideal,” October 28-December 19, 2001; traveled to University Art Museu, University of California at Santa Barbara, February 8-April 7, 2002; Grey Art Gallery, New York University, May 7-July 13, 2002.
Art Institute of Chicago, Gallery 10 Permanent Collection Rotation, November 21, 2015-May 8, 2016.

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Italian Family Seeking Lost Baggage, Ellis Island

Currently Off View

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.