Lewis Wickes Hine - Photographs New York Tuesday, October 1, 2013 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    The Collection of Walter and Naomi Rosenblum
    Lee Gallery, Winchester

  • Catalogue Essay

    From 1908 to 1916 Lewis Wickes Hine, backed by the National Child Labor Committee, documented the working and living conditions of young children in an “effort to expose and eliminate child labor.” The majority of Hine’s photographs were taken in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, Louisiana, and New York. At the time, one out of four millworkers in the South was between the ages of 10 and 16. And while the labor laws varied nationwide, they consistently favored the manufacturers over the welfare of the employees. Following the impact of Hine’s photographs, by 1912 all southern states had statutes that regulated the working hours and wages for children, decreeing that in order to be employed, a child had to be 12 years of age and could not work more than 64 hours a week. Hine’s photographs are described as “documentary” although he preferred the term “interpretive,” intending to have them shock and anger the viewer, not just record facts. His personal letters and correspondence from this period are noteworthy, and he often captioned the photographs so to reveal details viewers would not have known otherwise. Lewis Hine’s efforts at social reform were without precedence, and the legacy of his photographs had a vastly positive effect on American society.

    Please reference the beginning of the afternoon session (lot 140) for an essay on this collection.

PROPERTY FROM A DISTINGUISHED CALIFORNIA COLLECTION

151

This was the high-tide of tenement homework in New York City when children like these worked at flower-making, picking out nut-meats and many other and many other things long days and even into the night,(this was going on at 8;00 P.M.) Their schooling, health and recreation suffered very much.

1912
Gelatin silver print, printed 1920s.
7 1/2 x 9 1/2 in. (19.1 x 24.1 cm)
Credited and titled 'Tenement Homework' in pencil on the mount; credited in ink, 'Lewis W. Hine/ Interpretive Photography/ Hastings-on-Hudson, New York' credit and Walter and Naomi Rosenblum Collection stamps on the verso; typed descriptive title on a label affixed to the reverse of the mount.

Estimate
$5,000 - 7,000 

Sold for $5,000

Contact Specialist
Vanessa Kramer Hallett
Worldwide Head, Photographs
vhallett@phillips.com
+1 212 940 1245

Photographs

New York 30 September & 1 October 2013