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6    THE GUILD NEW                  SEPTEMBER, 1938

HAVE YOU ANY HINE NEGATIVES?

Lewis W. Hine, Pioneer Sociological Photographer, Wins Belated Recognition in Art Circles - Still Eager for Assignments

During the past few weeks the attention of Guild members has been drawn to the work of Lewis W. Hine, pioneer sociological photographer of 30 years ago, who blazed the trail to the modern era of picture documents, and whose recent work on Government projects, notably at Scott's Run, W, Va., is as fresh, compelling and provocative as ever. 
      
A few weeks ago, Miss Romana Javits, of the Picture Department, New York Public Library, told a member of the Guild about Hine when the member, who wishes to remain anonymous, was visiting the library. At Miss Javits' suggestion, the Guild member got in touch with Miss Elizabeth McCausland, a newspaper woman and art critic, who, with Frederick Kiesler, an architect, and Miss Berenice Abbott, a WPA photographer, have endeavored to interest individuals and institutions in Hine's work and present needs.

Hine recently presented about 50 of his early prints to the research department of the New York Public Library, as the first chapter in what he calls "Documentary Photography: American Life and Labor." He hopes other photographers will contribute, so the series may be augmented and made into a permanent record. Many of his own early negatives have been lost, and efforts are being made to find some of them. If you have any, or know where any are, or if you can assist Hine in any way to get assignments, the Guild will gladly pass the word along.

"What is needed now," Miss McCausland says, "is some grant of material assistance in order that we may, before it is too late, get the complete record of Hine's pioneering documentary photographic labors into shape and deposited in places of public trust. Otherwise it will be a repetition of the old story - of Brady, whose collection was practically snatched from his hands to satisfy his debts, or Atget, who lived and died so unknown that at his death his plates were carted away and virtually lost until later tracked down by a sincere young photographer. Without practical assistance, as yet but a dream, Hine's history will be like that of many another pioneer. The pioneers broke the sod; others reaped the harvest"

The most complete account of Hine and his work that has appeared in print was published Sept. 11 in the Springfield (Mass.) Republican. It was written by Miss McCausland.

"Hine's whole story," she says, "is American. Born in 1874, in Oshkosh, Wis., Hine is the son of early settlers in that progressive state. At 15 he had to leave school and went to work in a furniture factory, receiving $4 a week and working 13 hours a day, six days a week." Later he worked in department stores and in a bank, learned stenography, took university extension courses, and studied art privately. Then he met Frank A. Manny, new principal of the state normal school. He induced Hine to study to become a special teacher in Nature studies. When Manny was appointed principal of the Ethical Culture School in New York, he brought Hine, among others, here with him. That was in 1901.

Manny conceived the idea of visualizing the school's work with the camera. Because Hine had studied art, he was made school photographer. Until then he had never had a camera in his hands. He went to work with a five by seven view camera, a slow rectilinear lens, and a barrel of flash powder.

"Arthur Kellogg suggested to Hine that he set up as a 'sociological photographer.' And this he did, despite advice to the contrary from some quarters. A connection was soon formed with the National Child Labor committee, whose executive secretary, Owen R. Lovejoy, has been one of Hine's best supporters; and from this source Hine had commissions off and on for 10 years. The fruits of this work were printed in pamphlets of the committee, in the Survey and in other publications. The public with and social consciousness was startled and shocked. But no one bothered to think of these pictures as art as well as social documents; no one appreciated that in them lay the beginning of a new esthetic

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