Projects on immigration and child labour
Hine's early projects included Ellis Island immigrants in 1905. In 1908 the National Child Labor Committee hired him, initially temporarily and then permanently, to investigate working conditions. His subjects included children and adults in mills, mines, farms, canneries, tenement workshops and street trades.
The committee circulated the images through publications, newspapers, lantern-slide presentations and travelling displays. Hine headed its exhibits department from 1913, helping shape public presentation. Photography functioned within an organized investigation and advocacy campaign as well as becoming a body of artistic work.
Photographs, captions and reports
To obtain access, Hine sometimes posed as a salesman or machinery photographer; when refused entry, he waited outside workplaces. Captions recorded names, ages, tasks, hours and wages, sometimes citing witnesses. Reports referred to photographs by their assigned numbers.
A 1911 Maine sardine-cannery investigation survives with its typescript report and photographs. The Library of Congress cautions that caption authorship is not always certain and some annotations were added later. Names and ages may require verification: images and captions are complementary evidence rather than interchangeable records.
Adult workers and the surviving archive
Later work emphasized adult labour, including a power-house mechanic in 1920 and Empire State Building workers in 1931. A Metropolitan Museum photograph dated to the 1930s juxtaposes a worker's break with the city's elevated construction landscape.
Hine died in 1940. In 1954 the committee transferred records including more than 5,100 prints and 355 glass negatives to the Library of Congress. The George Eastman Museum holds a broader archive. The child-labour collection represents a major project rather than the entirety of his photographic career.