Giving Voice

Abstract

This paper examines the work of three documentary photographers, each of whom employed their cameras in an effort to improve the lives of children. I compare Lewis Hine’s child labor project in the early 20th Century with more modern photographic efforts to give voice to children by Wendy Ewald and Zana Briski. I explore how these artists used photography as an activist tool to enact legal, educational and personal change in their subjects’ lives. By analyzing the traditional roles of documentary photographers and how those roles evolved between Hine’s era and today, I examine how these particular artists helped to push, or break through, the boundaries separating artist from subject. Finally, I analyze critiques of documentary activism and how changing attitudes towards the concept of “other” influenced the direction of Ewald and Briski’s work.