Untitled

1900

Enrolls at the University of Chicago, aspiring to be an educator

After the accidental death of his father, the teenaged Hine took on a number of jobs to support his widowed mother and sisters. Aspiring to become an educator like his mother, he saved part of his earnings to pay for schooling at the University of Chicago, where he enrolled in 1900.

1901

Moves to New York at Frank Manny's invitation

While a student in Chicago, Hine met Frank Manny, a professor of education who in 1901 was named superintendent of the Ethical Culture School in New York City. At Manny's invitation Hine accepted a position as an assistant teacher and relocated to New York, where he encouraged his students to use photography as an educational medium.

1903

Buys a camera and a magnesium flash gun

Hine acquires a camera and a magnesium flash gun and, by trial and error, masters his equipment in order to illustrate school life. Other accounts say he began photographing in 1905.

1907

Becomes staff photographer of the Russell Sage Foundation

Hine photographs life in the steel-making districts and the people of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for the influential sociological study The Pittsburgh Survey.

1908

Becomes photographer for the National Child Labor Committee

Inspired by the success of his photographs of immigrants, Hine leaves teaching to become the staff photographer of the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC), which launched the first campaign in US history against the exploitation of children in industry. Over the next decade he documents child labor, especially in the Carolina Piedmont, to aid the committee's lobbying to end the practice; Hine himself had worked long hours in a factory as a boy.

3 November 1940

Died