High Up on Empire State Building

Lewis Hine was one of the most influential social documentary photographers of the twentieth century. His first use of the camera, in about 1904 at Ellis Island, was triggered by political debates over immigration. Later, he recorded child labor across the country and the larger subject of American industrial workers. During the construction of the Empire State Building in 1930-1931, Hine scrambled about the towering structure to record laborers at work. These photographs celebrated the skill and daring of these anonymous artisans and the genius of American engineering.