#BacklistTreasures “When Innovation was King - The WPA National Research Project Photographs, 1936–37” by Lewis Hine Lewis Hine—born on this day in 1874—was trained as a sociologist and educator in Chicago and New York. In 1904 he photographed newly arrived immigrants on Ellis Island with his students from the Ethical Culture School in New York. He felt so strongly about the abuse of children as workers that he quit his teaching job in 1908 to become an investigative photographer for the National Child Labor Committee. Declaring that he “wanted to show things that had to be corrected,” he was one of the earliest photographers to use the photograph as a tool for social change. In 1936, Hine was commissioned by the National Research Project, a division of the Works Progress Administration, to produce a visual document of the industries that the US government hoped would provide the jobs that would lift the country out of the Great Depression. Hine produced more than 700 photographs for this project, the last major work of his career. Image: Warp threads being wound off of the frame onto the beam, unidentified mill, Paterson, New Jersey, 1936 #LewisHine #bornonthisday #botd #steidl #steidlbooks @howardgreenberggallery