| Summary: | Photographing children at work for the National Child Labor Committee (1908-1918), Lewis Hines uses various methods where text and image interact to communicate his markedly reformist vision. Convinced of the ability of photography to serve the cause of objectivity, the photographer commits himself to a conception of the truth that is at once political and moral, resultant of his engagement with Progressism, as well as his commitment to science and technology—founded on his confidence in the inherent qualities of the medium. Through diversifying and increasing the ways in which he disseminates his photographs, Hines searches for the most effective rhetoric. This article endeavors to show the photographer as the architect of an elaborately constructed truth. It will analyze the different modes he employs in organizing his images in order to guide the reader/viewer towards an interpretation that is increasingly controlled, eventually even linking documentary photography and advertising with poster design.
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