Photographer Lewis Hine

Lewis Hine, a New York City schoolteacher and photographer, believed that a picture could tell a powerful story. In 1908, he quit teaching and became an investigative photographer for the National Child Labor Committee. He traveled the country taking pictures of children working in all types of industries: coal mines, meatpacking houses, textile mills, canneries, in the streets selling newspapers, and other places.

Hine took this photograph. The caption he wrote is: “Group showing a few of the workers stringing beans in the J.S. Farrand Packing Co. Those too small to work are held on laps of workers or stowed away in boxes. Baltimore, Md.” (June 7, 1909) Answer the questions below to analyze the photo.