Photography During The Industrial Revolution Essay

Photography is one of the greatest influences made on society today. It can determine a person’s viewpoints on a subject, create conflicting emotions, and cause many historical impacts. One of the best known historical impacts in the United States, was the end of child labor during the Industrial Revolution.This exhibited the low quality working conditions children were operating in. During the Industrial Revolution, profound photographs were captured of children that contributed to the enactment of child labor laws by being showcased in newspapers, having an emotional impact on society, and creating the National Child Labor Committee. The term photography tends to be seen as untrustworthy to audiences. They see photography as a never ending lie of photoshop, manipulation, and staging. However, the integrity of the photo depends on the photographer themselves and not the art of photography. For the truth is, that the photographs taken during the industrial revolution were taken with 100% integrity and were neither staged or manipulated. In this
Business owners made an effort to end the production of photographs that portrayed industries as harming children. Lewis Hine commented on his work stating, “he used subterfuge to take his photographs, he believed that he had to be double-sure that [his] photo data was 100% pure--no retouching or fakery of any kind (Teaching With Documents...)”. This statement was meant towards those who had controversy about staging and manipulation. Hine wanted it to be known how he felt on the issue of manipulation and wanted to ease the minds of those that questioned his work. His photographs were also evaluated by the newspapers and magazines that he was published in, which uphold his credibility. Hine wanted to portray the truth of what was occurring, he felt that he did not need to make up his own story because each picture that he photographed told their