Innate within Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Hine studied sociology at the University of Chicago, Columbia University, and New York University. He began his career inside 1904, photographing immigrants arriving in the United States at Ellis Island in New York Harbor. Within 1908, he became the lensman for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC). All over a next decade, Hine documented child labor in American industry to help a NCLC's lobbying efforts to prevent a practice. Between 1906 & 1908, he was the mercenary lensman for The Survey, a leading social reform magazine.

Around 1908, Hine photographed life in the steel-making segment of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for the influential study, "The Pittsburgh Survey." During & fallowing World War I, he documented American Red Cross relief work around Europe. In the 1920s and early 1930s, Hine made the series of "work portraits," which emphasized a person contribution to modern industry, & involved exposure of the workers constructing New York City's Empire State Building. When you took a Great Depression, he again worked for the Red Cross, photographing drought relief in the U.s. South, & for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), documenting life in the mountains of eastern Tennessee. He when well served as principal lensman for the Works Progress Administration's (WPA) National Search Design, which exposed changes around industry & their burden in employment. Hine was besides the member of the faculty of the Ethical Culture Fieldston School.

A National Archives holds nearly 2,000 Hine pic, including examples of his little one labor & Red Cross pic, his operate portraits, & his WPA & TVA images.

Notable Photographs Steam Fitter, 1920. Workers, Empire State Building, 1931. Infant Labor: Girls within Manufactory, 1908.