Lewis Hine
Willie: His Mother Admitted He is Only 13 Years Old
1910
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Lewis Hine
Willie: His Mother Admitted He is Only 13 Years Old
1910
Physical Qualities
Gelatin silver print, Sheet: 125 x 177 mm. (4 15/16 x 6 15/16 in.)
Image: 120 x 170 mm. (4 3/4 x 6 11/16 in.)
Credit Line
Purchase with exchange funds from the Edward Joseph Gallagher III Memorial Collection; and partial gift of George H. Dalsheimer, Baltimore
Object Number
1988.360
“Perhaps you are weary of child labor pictures,” said Lewis Hine in 1909, three years after he began working as a photographer and investigator for the National Child Labor Committee. “Well, so are the rest of us, but we propose to make you and the whole country so sick and tired of the whole business that when the time for action comes, child-labor pictures will be records of the past.” Over the next decade, Hine continued to document the exploitation of working children, writing captions for his photographs to underscore their social reform intent. The title of this work is drawn from Hine’s paragraph about the plight of a young Pennsylvania mine worker.
Looking through the Lens: Photography 1900-1960
Verna Posever Curtis and Stanley Mallach, Photography and Reform: Lewis Hine & The National Child Labor Committee, Milwaukee: Milwaukee Art Museum, 1984, p. 65 (#31).
Inscribed: FACE: clean. VERSO: (written in black ink) u.l. '1920'; (pencil) r.ctr. '1920 /.0189'.
