Lewis Wickes Hine: Pictures as Documents


Lewis Wickes Hine: Pictures as Documents 



Stamped: Photo file: Photographs by Lewis W. Hine         
Source: #8446
Subjects: New York City – Tenements
Caption: “The doorway to the stables has become the entrance to the rear tenements. The shed at right is used as a horse’s stall. The covered drive way is used as a playground."
Locale: Mayer’s Place, New York City
Date: 1901s      Stamped: Franziska Gay Schacht Collection. NYPL Picture Collection - Reference File

Lewis Wickes Hine (1905-1938) was the perfect kind of photographer for the purposes of documentation. While his intentions were largely one of advocating for social reform, his ability to construct his compositions and pack them with information is what made his work of interest to the New York Public Library's Picture Collection. 

In a masterly use of flash Hine encapsulates all manner of subject matter in crisp detail. In addition to housing conditions and children’s welfare, children’s games, mothers, women’s, infants and children’s dress, hairdressing, architecture, baby carriages, bare feet, stables, and many more are clearly delineated. 

Not only does this photograph show rich cultural detail it tells us a lot about Hine himself. The photograph seems suspiciously posed. Hine was never concerned about "posing" his compositions, if he could get his message across in a more earnest way. 

The richness of the subject matter in this image was such that it was named as being part of the Franziska Gay Schacht Memorial Collection. Schacht was a senior Picture Collection librarian and contributed to and helped edit Picturescope, newsletter of the Special Libraries Association’s Picture Division. She died rather suddenly of medical complications in 1962. 

The NYPL holdings of photographs by Lewis W. Hine (1874-1940) came to the Library in different ways. Hine was known to photograph for the Branch Libraries as early as 1911 and his work can be found in the New York Public Library Archives (Visual Materials, RG10). Once the Picture Collection was established in 1916 many of Hine’s photographs also began to populate its stock. Hine himself donated photographs in 1931 and possibly earlier, including his series of the Empire State Building. 

In 1949, the Russell Sage Foundation transferred to the New York Public Library several series of Hine prints (among them Ellis Island and NYC tenements) which it had commissioned from him for its library. Other sources were prints from original negatives from the George Eastman House. See Source #8446.1 and 8446.2 below.

New York Public Library Archives, The New York Public Library. (1910).Women and girls reading near swingset where younger children are suspended in hammock like swings, July 1910. 



Source Files

The Picture Collection began sourcing their files soon after Javitz became is Superintendent in 1930.  If an illustration was clipped from a book or portfolio the plate would be assigned a Source Number which would lead you to a catalog card with its provenance, bibliographic information, or if it was a gift or purchase.  Today this source file index and its accompanying index to periodicals that have been clipped are valuable research tools.

The Source # for this image is 8446.




 Words on Pictures: Romana and the New York Public Library’s Picture Collection. edited by Anthony T. Troncale. New York: Photo | Verso Publications, LLC, 2020.   ISBN 978-1-7346409-0-8 (hardcover)  Identifiers ISBN  978-1-7346409-1-5 (ebook)

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