St. Louis, Missouri, USA
(Lewis Hine / Library of Congress)
As a photographer working for social reform, Lewis Hine found a number of advantages in photographing ‘newsies’: boys who sold newspapers on the street. Unlike the work he did photographing child workers in mines, factories and mills, Hine could photograph the boys without seeking permission from employers or, more typically, by circumnavigating employers. The photographs could be achieved with more time, and with more focus and attention on the subjects he shot.
To achieve this sense of direct connection, Hine would bring his camera down to the eye level of his subjects. He didn’t just take photographs of child workers, he also talked to them and sought to document their experience. In aggregate, he created a body of work that displayed an unacceptable standard of living for many thousands of children and which, ultimately, achieved a change in the law and in a cultural understanding of what it means to be a child.
‘Attention. Newsboys. The record takes a great deal of pride in its street sales force, as the “little business men of the curb” each week dispose of up to 200 Records. To show our appreciation of the newsies and to encourage them to their best efforts, we are going to give ABSOLUTELY FREE A .22 CALIBER REPEATING RIFLE TO THE BOY SELLING THE MOST RECORDS BETWEEN 14 October 1910 and 1 January 1911.’
The Roundup Record, Montana, October 7, 1910
