In the 1900s and 1910s, Lewis Hine photo­graphed children working in
mills, factories, and on the street, creating documentary images that helped
stir the conscience of Americans to establish child labor laws. Powerhouse
Mechanic marked a new direction: “interpretive photography,” as the
photogra­pher’s stamp on the back of this print declares. Here, Hine posed a
ruggedly masculine worker as if tightening a steam pump bolt, orchestrating an
image that would become emblematic of industrial labor. “We call this the
Machine Age,” Hine wrote, “but the more machines we use, the more do we need
real men to make and direct them.”