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Sleeping Newsboy, Lewis Hine, 1912

Entitled: "Newsboy asleep on stairs with papers, Jersey City, New Jersey" photographed by Lewis Hine, February 1912. In 1908, Hine accepted a position as chief investigator and photographer for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC), a private organization founded in 1904 whose mission was to promote legislation to protect children from exploitation by American industry. At the time, children as young as four years old labored in a variety of trades eight to twelve hours a day in factories, tenements, and on the streets. Newspaper sellers, or newsies, fit into the category of street trades, a subject that engendered some of Hine's most lyrical photographs. Although Hine usually recorded the child's age, name, and work habits, he did not disturb this young boy, clearly exhausted from a long day's work. Instead, he captioned the photograph, made in New York City: "A sleeping newsboy found after midnight in the vestibule of a railroad station, newspapers for a pillow." But in fact the picture needs no caption, for the meaning of the scene is clearly stated, the child's hidden face and flattened body a metaphor for all that Hine and the NCLC tried to abolish. Asleep on his unsold goods, the boy is old news, left at the station and forgotten after the departure of the last train.
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Title:
Sleeping Newsboy, Lewis Hine, 1912
Caption:
Entitled: "Newsboy asleep on stairs with papers, Jersey City, New Jersey" photographed by Lewis Hine, February 1912. In 1908, Hine accepted a position as chief investigator and photographer for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC), a private organization founded in 1904 whose mission was to promote legislation to protect children from exploitation by American industry. At the time, children as young as four years old labored in a variety of trades eight to twelve hours a day in factories, tenements, and on the streets. Newspaper sellers, or newsies, fit into the category of street trades, a subject that engendered some of Hine's most lyrical photographs. Although Hine usually recorded the child's age, name, and work habits, he did not disturb this young boy, clearly exhausted from a long day's work. Instead, he captioned the photograph, made in New York City: "A sleeping newsboy found after midnight in the vestibule of a railroad station, newspapers for a pillow." But in fact the picture needs no caption, for the meaning of the scene is clearly stated, the child's hidden face and flattened body a metaphor for all that Hine and the NCLC tried to abolish. Asleep on his unsold goods, the boy is old news, left at the station and forgotten after the departure of the last train.
Personalities:
Category:
black & white • History: United States
Credit:
Album / Science Source / MMA/Gilman Collection
Releases:
? Model Release: No - ? Property Release: No
Rights questions?
Image size:
4200 x 2863 px | 34.4 MB
Print size:
35.6 x 24.2 cm | 14.0 x 9.5 in (300 dpi)
Keywords: