THE CHANGING FACE OF AMERICA: PHOTOGRAPHY AND IMMIGRATION,1880-1920

From 1880-1920, a period of rapid industrialization and urbanization, as many as twenty million immigrants arrived in the United States. This slide/lecture explores the role of photography in representing immigrant life and shaping how the United States was imagined as a haven for the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” In documenting the arrival and living conditions of mostly European immigrants, photographers such as Jacob Riis (1849-1914) and Lewis Hine (1874-1940) captured the changing face of an increasingly diverse nation and exposed the lure and limits of the American Dream.