Spinner and Foreman in Georgia cotton mill
Artist
Lewis W. Hine
(American, 1874 - 1940)
Date1908
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsImage: 4 5/8 × 6 1/2 inches (11.75 × 16.51 cm)
Sheet: 5 × 7 inches (12.7 × 17.78 cm)
Sheet: 5 × 7 inches (12.7 × 17.78 cm)
Credit LineGift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Object number2005.27.1435
Signednone
InscribedOn sheet verso, top, in black pen: "N. 445.", "CHILD LABOR";
On sheet verso, upper right corner, in pencil: "45" [circled];
On sheet verso, center, in black pen: "Georgia 1908 / Spinner and foreman / in Southern cotton / mill."
Markingsnone
On View
Not on viewCollections
DescriptionImage of a young girl wearing a dress with boots standing next to a man in a cotton mill. He wears a hat and pants with suspenders. They face a long spinning mule lined with spools of thread.Exhibition HistoryHide & Seek: Picturing Childhood. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, September 26, 2009 – February 21, 2010, no cat.
Rotation 15. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, June 19, 2013 – January 5, 2014, no cat.
World War I and the Rise of Modernism. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, January 9 – October 18, 2015.
In the early twentieth century, Pictorialists conveyed the Romantic view that childhood should be firmly separated from the adult realm-characterized by play, removed from the commercial world, supervised and directed by adults. From this point of view, play was considered a precious and essential element of healthy development. Photographers like Lewis Hine contrasted these idealistic assumptions of childhood with the darker realities of his day: the prevalence of child labor. Here, Hine emphasizes the diminutiveness of the girl in relation to the vast industrial machinery. The spinner's small body, contrasted to the adult standing beside her and the seemingly infinite line of bobbins, points to her inappropriate existence in an adult world, completely void of play.
Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City, MO, 1973;
Given by Hallmark Cards, Inc. to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2005.
Given by Hallmark Cards, Inc. to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2005.
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