The Turbine, Power-House, New York City
1920
Hine's later "Work Portraits" series celebrated industrial labor as heroic, marking a shift from his earlier child labor exposés to a more optimistic vision of American industry.
- Medium
- Gelatin silver print
- Location
- Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Spotted works by Lewis Wickes Hine
Artists in conversation
Margaret Bourke-White
American · b. 1904
Bourke-White pioneered industrial photography in America during the same era, creating dramatic gelatin silver prints of turbines, steel mills, and factory machinery that celebrated industrial labor with heroic visual grandeur. Her work shares Hine's monochrome aesthetic and reverent documentary approach to American industrial power.
Charles Sheeler
American · b. 1883
Sheeler worked extensively in industrial photography and Precisionist painting during the early 20th century, capturing American factories and power infrastructure with the same celebratory and monumentalizing vision seen in Hine's turbine portrait. His photographic work at Ford's River Rouge plant shares the same subject matter and optimistic framing of industrial modernity.
Berenice Abbott
American · b. 1898
Abbott created striking black and white documentary photographs of New York City's architecture and emerging industrial landscape during the same period, using gelatin silver prints to convey the monumental scale of modern American infrastructure. Her commitment to photography as a document of social and industrial transformation closely mirrors Hine's approach in this work.
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