Climbing into the Promised Land, Ellis Island
Brooklyn Museum photograph
Object Label
Trained as a sociologist, Lewis Wickes Hine began a career in photography in 1905, when, as a teacher, he brought his class to Ellis Island. While encouraging his students to use cameras as part of their studies, Hines himself started to photograph and ultimately became a photojournalist. In this extraordinary image, immigrants in heavy coats and with their paperwork in hand climb a congested staircase in the process of becoming American citizens; Hine managed to juggle a huge, awkward camera while manipulating a crude device loaded with flash powder in order to compose this gripping picture of hope, confusion, and excitement. When he died, in 1940, Hine left behind a legacy of several thousand images of dazzling quality and social import, many of them portraits of workers, often children.
Caption
Lewis Wickes Hine American, 1874–1940. Climbing into the Promised Land, Ellis Island, 1908. Gelatin silver print, image: 13 x 10 1/2 in. (33 x 26.7 cm) sheet: 13 5/16 x 11 in. (33.8 x 27.9 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Walter and Naomi Rosenblum, 84.237.1. No known copyright restrictions (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 84.237.1_SL1.jpg)
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Artist
Title
Climbing into the Promised Land, Ellis Island
Date
1908
Medium
Gelatin silver print
Classification
Dimensions
image: 13 x 10 1/2 in. (33 x 26.7 cm) sheet: 13 5/16 x 11 in. (33.8 x 27.9 cm)
Signatures
Signed in pencil on verso: "Hine"
Markings
Stamped in ink on verso with studio stamp: "Lewis Hine interpretive photography, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York"; "Photograph by Lewis Hine from the Walter and Naomi Rosenblum collection"
Credit Line
Gift of Walter and Naomi Rosenblum
Accession Number
84.237.1
Rights
No known copyright restrictions
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