Hine, Adams & Eggleston: Rural America Through Photography

Introduction: Three Photographers, One Thematic Arc

Lewis Wickes Hine, Ansel Adams, and William Eggleston captured the essence of rural America from three different eras in American history. Hine was a sociologist and photographer who photographed "Barbara Lieber, 9-year-old sugar beet worker, hoeing with her 11-year-old sister on a Wisconsin farm near St. John" in 1915. Adams photographed "Farm workers and Mt. Williamson" in 1943, and Eggleston photographed "Untitled, Mississippi" in 1980. In these three photos, one can see the progression of American life — the move from living off the land to living off the produce of corporate America, a nation that went from being country to being corporatized.

This essay examines the thematic concept that links the photographs of Hine, Adams, and Eggleston: specifically, the way the country has transitioned over the last century and how it has altered its connection to the land.

Lewis Hine and the Human Cost of Agrarian Labor

Hine's 1915 photograph of child beet laborers focused not so much on the glories of farming in rural America as on the way children were exploited. Hine was a documentarian photographer, capturing images to effect social change rather than to uplift the soul the way Adams sought to do (New York Public Library). What his image of the farm shows in 1915, however, is that the land was being tilled and used by locals — even if child laborers were required to do so. It was in essence a communal task: a family working together, and often many families working together as laborers. Children were given the task of hoeing and raking in the produce to support the home. The connection between land, labor, and life was unmistakable.

While Hine objected to the use of children as laborers, this way of life still told a story about rural America that had life in it. By the time Eggleston would photograph his rural America in 1980, that life had been drained out, and all that remained was a rusted sign in front of a machine-tilled field of mud. As Smith-Shank notes, "Hine's family valued education" (33), and for that reason Hine used photography to insist on social reform. And yet, in seeing the child laborers in the beet fields of 1915, one feels a sentimental pull — as though life were simpler back then, as though things made more sense in the way people lived off the land.

Ansel Adams and the Spiritual Value of Landscape

The bridge between Hine's photograph and Eggleston's is Adams'. Adams focused on the beauty of nature and how a landscape could alter the soul, giving it light and room to breathe. During his lifetime, Adams was criticized for being a landscape photographer — a purveyor of sentimentality. The criticism came from artists such as French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, who lamented, "The world is going to pieces and people like Adams and Weston are photographing rocks!" (Spaulding 119). Critics wanted gritty realism — photographs of people on the streets, the marginalized and the oppressed. Adams was after something else: realism of a different focus. Instead of looking down in the mud, he was looking for beauty in a world where it seemed to be rapidly disappearing.

Edward Weston defended Adams against such criticism, arguing: "It seems so utterly naïve that landscape — not that of the pictorial school — is not considered of 'social significance' when it has a far more important bearing on the human race of any locale than excrescences called cities. By landscapes, I mean every physical aspect of a region — weather, soil, wildflowers, mountain peaks — and its effect on the psyche and physical appearance of the people" (Hadden 123). Adams, in other words, was offering a different take on the human experience: mankind's interaction with nature as a positive and necessary encounter, one that had to be admired and maintained for the goodness of the soul's development.

Whereas Hine photographed children laboring in the fields to bring attention to the problem of child labor, Adams was photographing adults laboring in the fields to remind the world that labor connected us to nature, which allowed our souls room for expansiveness and growth. Alfred Stieglitz understood what Adams was about and appreciated it deeply, writing to Adams: "It is good for me to know that there is Ansel Adams loose somewhere in the world of ours" (Norton). As a leader of the Sierra Club, Adams strongly supported conservation and resigned from the Club when it compromised on a plan to urbanize Yosemite via Tioga Road. Just as he showed in "Farm workers and Mt. Williamson" in 1943, Adams was adamant that landscape be preserved in its pristine condition (Turnage).

Conclusion: Land, Disconnection, and the Passage of Time

The thematic link between Hine, Adams, and Eggleston is the land and people's connection to it — it is America, the way in which we lived and live today. Their photographs showed how people were in the past and how the world is today: people disconnected from the land and separated from the spiritual good that Adams felt was necessary for life to be lived to its fullest. Hine's push for social reform may have inadvertently triggered this separation, which Eggleston documents in Mississippi.

Works Cited

Adams, Ansel. "Farm workers and Mt. Williamson." Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons.

The Art Story. William Eggleston. theartstory.org.

Eggleston, William. "Untitled, Mississippi, 1980." egglestontrust.com.

Hadden, Peggy. The Quotable Artist. Skyhorse Publishing, 2010.

Hine, Lewis Wickes. "Barbara Lieber, 9-year-old sugar beet worker, hoeing with her 11-year-old sister on a Wisconsin farm near St. John." 1915.

New York Public Library. About Lewis Wickes Hine. nypl.org.

Norton, Kenneth. Beyond the Light, 2011.

Smith-Shank, Deborah L. "Lewis Hine and his photo stories: Visual culture and social reform." Art Education 56.2 (2003): 33–37.

Spaulding, Jonathan. Ansel Adams and the American Landscape. University of California Press, 1998.

Turnage, Robert. Ansel Adams. Wilderness Society, 1980.