Struggling in America

A big part of my motivation for choosing photography as a career was to someday create a documentary project of social significance that would help to change the world for the better.
 
One of the photographers who inspired me on this path was Lewis Hine. He lived in New York City in the early years of the twentieth century and worked as a schoolteacher and photographer. In 1908, Hine left his teaching position to become a photographer for the National Child Labor Committee, an agency that promoted and aided the enactment of child labor laws.
 
Hine traveled around the country photographing the working conditions of children in all types of industries. He photographed children in coal mines, meatpacking houses, textile mills, and canneries. Hine's compelling photographs were crucial to enacting and enforcing child labor laws in the United States.