Description:
Immigrant; Ellis Island; Mother and Child; Immigration; American history;
Label Text:
Lewis Wickes Hines is best known for the photographs he took for the National Child Labor Committee documenting the dire conditions in which children worked in factories at the turn of the century. His photographs became instrumental in establishing child labor laws. Hines originally studied sociology and, while teaching in New York, realized that his true vocation was photographing and documenting the social injustices he saw around him. He frequently photographed new immigrant arrivals at Ellis Island, the main gateway to American citizenship, and then followed them into the tenements of New York City.
This image of an immigrant woman and her child was most likely taken during the long waiting period all immigrants endured after arriving at Ellis Island. The title “Peace” frames the intimate moment in which the child gazes up at its mother in loving adoration—a moment of complete unison wherein mother and child are one. We experience this same moment in the works of many Renaissance artists, this adoration shared between Virgin and Christ which instilled a sense of complete surrender in religious onlookers. This same moment recreated by Hines in such a different context resonates on many levels, and elevates the hard reality of the immigrant to a higher plane. HKDV
Subjects:
Paperboard; Photographic gelatin Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=SC+1985.19.1 |
