Foreman in a Steel Plant

This photograph, likely made in Pittsburgh in the 1920s or 1930s, captures a foreman standing beside an open-hearth blast furnace, which was filled with ore and scrap in the production of iron. Iron, in turn, was used in the making of steel. Hine’s extensive documentation of the plight of steel workers—including their factories, homes, and neighborhoods—was first published in the Pittsburgh Survey (1907–08), a pioneering study of an American industrial city. Hine had worked in a factory in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, before coming to study at the University of Chicago for one year. In 1908, he became a photographer for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC), documenting abuses in factories and sweatshops. Aside from his work dedicated to child laborers, Hine was committed to picturing the dignity of labor in general, and did so for several decades. Yet interest in his work declined by the late 1930s, and his achievement was not fully recognized until after his death.