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Sadie Pfeifer was 9 years old when this photo was taken.
拍摄这张照片时，赛迪·费弗才9岁。
Operating heavy machinery that’s nearly twice her height in a cotton mill in Lancaster, South Carolina, in 1908.
那是1908年，9岁的她就已经在南卡罗来纳州兰开斯特的一家棉纺厂里操作几乎是她身高两倍的重型机械了。
She was just one of many children working in mills, fields, factories, and mines.
然而，她只是磨坊、田地、工厂和矿山等地使用的无数童工中的一个。
And although these kids were spread across the United States, working in separate industries,
尽管这些孩子分布在全国各地的不同行业，
they all had one thing in common: They all met Lewis Hine.
但他们都有个共同点：他们都遇到过刘易斯·海恩。
At the turn of the 20th century, the United States knew it had a child labor problem.
20世纪初，美国就已经知道自己存在童工问题。
The 1900 federal census revealed that 1.75 million children under the age of 16, more than one in five, were working at this time.
1900年的联邦人口普查显示，当时16岁以下的童工人数高达175万，平均每5个儿童中就有不止1个是童工。
The Industrial Revolution had mechanized American and European manufacturing,
工业革命带动美国和欧洲的制造业走上了机械化的道路，
and a cheap labor force was needed to complete repetitive tasks for hours on end.
十分需要廉价劳动力来完成一连数小时的重复性工作。
Children from poor families were targeted for these jobs
贫困家庭的孩子就成了这些岗位的目标人选，
because they would work for next to nothing and were less likely to strike than adults.
因为他们几乎是免费劳动力，而且罢工的可能性也比成年人小。
State legislatures and the American public knew this was happening on a mass scale, but didn’t act.
各州的立法机构和美国公众都知道童工问题规模十分庞大，但他们选择了视而不见。
Until they saw what it actually looked like.
直到，他们看到这一问题的真实面貌。
Starting in 1908, the newly formed National Child Labor Committee hired a photographer to investigate and report on the industries employing children.
1908年，新成立的全国童工委员会聘请了一名摄影师，专门对雇用童工的行业进行调查和报道。
That photographer was Lewis Wickes Hine: educator, sociologist, and member of the Progressive Movement,
这名摄影师就是教育家、社会学家、“进步运动”成员路易斯·威克斯·海恩，
a period in the United States that saw a wave of political activism and social reform.
那场运动期间，美国出现了一波政治激进主义和社会改革浪潮。
Hine emphasized the potential power of photography as a tool for social reform
1909年，海恩发表了一篇名为《社会摄影:相机的作用》的演讲，
in a speech he gave in 1909 called "Social photography: how the camera may help."
强调摄影成为社会改革工具的潜力。
He said, "The dictum, then, of the social worker is "Let there be light;"
他说，社会工作者的格言是，“让光明存在，”
and in this campaign for light we have for our advance agent the light writer — the photograph."
而在这场争取光明的运动中，我们为我们书写光明的先锋们准备了摄影这一工具。
He traveled extensively, gathering information, interviews, and images of working children across the country.
为了这场运动，他东奔西走，收集有关全国各地童工的信息，采访及照片。
He visited coal mines in Pennsylvania.
参观宾夕法尼亚州的多个煤矿。
Where adolescent “breaker boys” worked underground for hours, separating impurities from coal.
那里有大量在地下分离煤炭杂质的十几岁“分拣男孩”。
Sardine cutters in Maine.
还有缅因州切沙丁鱼的童工。
Oyster shuckers in Louisiana, some as young as 4 years old.
路易斯安那州剥牡蛎壳的童工，有的年仅4岁。
Tobacco pickers in Kentucky.
肯塔基州采摘烟草的童工。
Cranberry pickers in Massachusetts.
马萨诸塞州采摘蔓越莓的童工。
Beet farms in Colorado.
科罗拉多州甜菜农场的童工。
And young messengers and newsboys in cities all over the country.
全国各地的送信工和报童。
Many of the photos captured adults nearby, supervising the children while they worked.
许多照片还抓拍到了在附近监督孩子们工作的成年人。
When Hine wasn’t allowed access to the mills and factories,
当被禁止进入作坊或工厂时，
he waited outside and documented the comings and goings of its workers,
海恩就守在外面记录童工们的进进出出，
whose shifts often lasted late into the night.
发现有的孩子轮班时经常要工作到深夜。
Laborers would pose for portraits and tell Hine a bit about themselves, their wages, and their work conditions.
这些童工摆着各种各样的姿势，还告诉了海因一些关于他们自己、关于他们的工资和工作条件的情况。
Sometimes they showed their horrific injuries and described what happened,
有时他们还会给海因看他们骇人的伤势，描述那些伤是怎么来的，
like this boy from Bessemer City, North Carolina, whose hand got crushed in the gears of a cotton spinner.
比如这个来自北卡罗来纳州贝塞默市的男孩，他被棉花纺纱机的齿轮切掉了手指。
We know that because each photo, numbering over 5,000, includes a detailed caption written by Hine.
我们知道这些，是因为尽管这样的照片总数超过5000张，每张照片都附有海恩的详细说明。
Hine coined the term “photo stories” to describe this marriage of images and text,
海恩还造了个新词“照片里的故事”，专指图片和文字的这种结合，
and it’s a big part of how the photos humanized the lives of child laborers to an indifferent public.
这种结合是那些照片的重要组成部分，借助这一手段，照片才充满人情味地将童工们的生活展示在了冷漠的公众面前。
But it’s also his photographic technique that makes them feel so personal.
但公众们之所以能感同身受也离不开海恩的摄影技巧。
Let’s use the photos of cotton mill workers like Sadie as an example.
就以赛迪这样的棉纺厂童工的照片为例。
First, many of these photos are framed the exact same way, just substituting a different worker.
首先，这类照片的构图都一样，只是换了一个童工而已。
Hine was trying to show that each child’s experience was part of a widespread problem,
海恩是想告诉大家，这些孩子的经历背后是一个普遍存在的社会问题，
and the repetition in the images signals that.
图像中的重复就表明了这一点。
You can really see how intentional the framing is
1909年，赛迪的照片首次登上了某进步杂志，
when you look at how the image of Sadie appeared when it was first published in a progressive magazine, in 1909.
从那组照片我们也能看出这个构图意图是多么的明显。
It’s opposite a nearly identical photo of a different worker, set so that the symmetry of the two images makes the machinery seem to go on and on.
赛迪的照片和另一个童工的照片几乎一模一样，这两张照片的对称性也让机器看起来有种无穷无尽之感。
The left-hand caption says, "Spinner. A type of many in the mill."
左边照片的注释写着：“纺纱工。工厂众多童工的一种。”
Hine’s photographs are also shot with a very shallow depth of field,
此外，海恩的照片景深很浅，
which basically means a narrow part of the photo is in focus, and the rest is blurred out.
大致意思就是照片中只有一小部分是聚焦的，其余部分都是模糊的。
A photo with a deep depth of field would look like this one by Jacob Riis,
深景深的照片是雅各布·里斯的这张照片这种类型，
who was photographing New York City slums around the same time as Hine.
此人和海因是同一时期的摄影家，只不过他主要拍摄的是纽约的贫民窟。
Notice how the playground in the background is in focus, just like the kids in the foreground.
注意，背景中的操场和前景中的孩子一样也是有对焦的。
Now look at Hine’s portraits.
再看海恩的肖像照。
In this one, the factory this boy works at looms behind him, but it’s almost totally blurred out.
在这张照片中，男孩工作的织布机工厂就位于他身后，但几乎完全模糊了。
This was a recurring visual theme — to include the machinery or the workplace in the frame,
这也是海因照片中一个反复出现的视觉主题——将机器或工作场所纳入画框，
but obscure it, favoring the worker instead.
但模糊它，重点突出照片中的童工。
This narrow point of focus, combined with shooting from a lower angle — the eye level of these children —
缩小对焦区域，加上较低的拍摄角度——这些孩子的平视的角度——
is why these images are so effective at humanizing their subjects.
是这些照片有效给予照片主题人文关怀的方式。
Photos like the ones from the South Carolina cotton mills changed the public perception of child labor in the United States,
南卡罗来纳州棉纺厂的照片连同其他同类型照片改变了美国公众对童工的看法，
ultimately pressuring state legislatures to introduce laws regulating work for those under the age of 18 — and sending kids back to school.
促使他们最终向州立法机构施压，要求他们出台针对使用未成年童工，以及让孩子们重返校园的法律。
Lewis Hine went on to photograph the construction of the Empire State Building in New York City,
海恩自此则转向了拍摄纽约帝国大厦的建造过程，
using the same dignifying techniques he photographed child laborers with:
用的还是他拍摄童工使用的那些赋予人物尊严的技巧：
Considering the perspective of his subjects with a narrow focus, emphasizing the worker, not the machinery.
通过缩小对焦区域，强调人而非机器，顾及拍摄主题的视角。
Hine was one of the first to use a camera as a tool for social documentary, to shine a light on the mostly unseen.
就使用相机作为社会纪录片工具，用它来照亮那些几乎看不见的东西而言，海恩堪称是这方面的一大先驱。
He understood early on the power images have to tell stories.
他很早就明白了图像讲述故事的能力。
As he said in that 1909 speech: "Take the photograph of a tiny spinner in a Carolina cotton mill.
正如他在1909年的演讲中所说：“为卡罗莱纳棉纺厂一个小小的纺纱工拍张照片。
With a picture thus sympathetically interpreted, what a lever we have for the social uplift.”
带着同情心去解读照片，我们就拥有了翘起社会进步的巨大杠杆。”
