Trained as a sociologist, Hine saw the camera as a tool for social reform. Between 1904 and 1909 he and his students from the Ethical Culture School photographed immigrants passing through Ellis Island. A boom in immigration had evoked a backlash of nativist sentiment, but Hine sought to arouse sympathy for the new arrivals, many of whom were fleeing civil unrest, famine, persecution, and poverty.

Here, a family searches for missing belongings, precious items they had brought on their long and arduous journey. The girls look tired and apprehensive, while their older brother, who literally and metaphorically helps his family shoulder the burden, is just starting to mirror the anxiety visible in his mother’s careworn face. The huddled family recalls lines from Emma Lazarus’s sonnet “The New Colossus,” written for the Statue of Liberty less than a mile away: “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. . . .”

—Text taken from the Carter Handbook (2023)