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A man standing next to a machine.

The Future of America: Lewis Hine's New Deal Photographs

Among the least known but most prescient photographs taken by social documentary photographer Lewis Hine (1874–1940) were those he made as chief photographer for the National Research Project (NRP), a division of the federal government's Works Project Administration (WPA) founded in late 1935. The goal of the NRP was to investigate recent changes in industrial technologies and to assess their effects on future employment. In over 700 photographs, taken in industrial towns throughout the Northeast in 1936 and 1937, Hine revealed not only working conditions in aging industrial factories, but also in new industries and productive workplaces.

32 Items
  • [Worker making matchboard on cylinder machine, American Writing Paper Company, Holyoke, Massachusetts]
  • [Walsh Holyoke Steam Boiler Works, Jolly, Inc., Church of the Precious Blood, and Holyoke Water Power Company at dusk, Holyoke, Massachusetts]
  • [Semi-skilled worker inserting balance screws in rim of balance wheel, Hamilton Watch Factory, Lancaster, Pennsylvania]
  • [Quiller holding rack of full quills ready to be inserted in shuttles for weaving, Paterson, New Jersey]
  • [Semi-skilled card operative piecing up ends, showing man and machine in action, Pickett Yarn Mill, High Point, North Carolina]
  • [Worker rewinding paper from reel, American Writing Paper Company, Holyoke, Massachusetts]
  • [Young worker starting to card, Pickett Yarn Mill, High Point, North Carolina]
  • [Machinist shaping section of driving rod for largest locomotive, Baldwin Locomotive Works, Eddystone, Pennsylvania]
  • [Highly skilled worker doffing spools off speeder, Pickett Yarn Mill, High Point, North Carolina]
  • [Worker taking silk from spool creel to warper, William Skinner and Sons, Holyoke, Massachusetts]
  • [Worker soaking silk skeins in boiled water to free it of gum, Madison Silk Company in Barnert Mills, Paterson, New Jersey]
  • [Two workers stamping glass jars with new device for lettering painted bottles, T. C. Wheaton Company, Millville, New Jersey]
  • [Worker knitting 42-gauge hose on modern machine, Minnesac Mills, Philadelphia]
  • [Workers assembling boiler for modern locomotive, Baldwin Locomotive Works, Eddystone, Pennsylvania]
  • [Workers pressing glass door knobs, T. C. Wheaton Company, Millville, New Jersey]
  • [Worker taking bottle off I.S. automatic glass-blowing machine for testing, Whitall Tatum Company, Millville, New Jersey]
  • [Hartford "I.S." glass-blowing machine, Whitall Tatum Company, Millville, New Jersey]
  • [Stationary steam engine built by W. W. Baldwin before 1830, Baldwin Locomotive Works, Eddystone, Pennsylvania]
  • [Skilled inspector using high-precision toolmaker's microscope, accurate to .0001 of an inch, to examine watches, Hamilton Watch Factory, Lancaster, Pennsylvania]
  • [William A. Portington, 72-year-old worker, using hand-operated knitting machine 100 years old formerly used to knit hosiery, Minnesac Mills, Philadelphia]
  • [Worker drawing out sheet of glass wool as screen rotates, Frederick & Dimmock Company, Millville, New Jersey]
  • [Worker setting eyes in sleeping dolls, Paragon Rubber Company and American Character Doll, Easthampton, Massachusetts]
  • [Worker spraying face, hands, and arms of dolls, Paragon Rubber Company and American Character Doll, Easthampton, Massachusetts]
  • [Worker pressing rubber bodies, Paragon Rubber Company and American Character Doll, Easthampton, Massachusetts]
  • [Worker operating Crompton-Knowles advanced loom that silves problem of weaving rayon and acetate together, Wishnack Silk Company, Paterson, New Jersey]
  • [Longshoremen and tractor crane loading bales of scrap paper to be shipped to London for use in making pressed car-wheels, Bush Terminal Company, Brooklyn]
  • [Green glass shop with variety of workers including carrying boy taking bottles to be annealed, Whitall Tatum Company, Millville, New Jersey]
  • [Bedroom and living room in company-owned home of workers at Highland Cotton Mills, High Point, North Carolina]
  • [Skilled cabinet maker assembling two key rails for radio cabinet, RCA Victor Plant, Camden, New Jersey]
  • [Mailboxes of many new caterpillar shops created in unused mill, New York]
  • [Loom laid out on carrier, Paterson, New Jersey]
  • [Three "toppers" topping 51-gauge hosiery, Minnesac Mills, Philadelphia]