The Eyes of Age

lewis hine boys and girls#1
Originally uploaded by Broussardish.

To me, the closest thing to real time travel is to look at faces in old photographs. See yourself in a face from the past and you can almost see out through those ancient eyes. Imagine how differently we'd view history, and ourselves, if we had photographs from early Rome or from ancient Egypt. Maybe we'd realize that the attainments and excesses of the past are no different from our own. Today, it's politically correct to recognize that race and culture are superficial distinctions. Maybe we should eliminate the temporal chauvinism that allows us to feel superior to our ancestors. Tradition has become something quaint. G.K. Chesterton, who had an acute sense of the endurance of truth, once referred to tradition as "the democracy of the dead." Temporal chauvinism is actually a kind of elitism that says, "We have cars and computers therefore we are superior than our great-grandparents." Any parent can detect the bald fallacy of that line of thought.

One of the challenges of historians is to eliminate this smugness and sense of "otherness" that we feel toward the past. To do this well is sometimes a project of research, but sometimes it's a mission that takes place in the present, for the future. Photographers with a sense of place and time are the chief missionaries in this field, and in his day, Lewis Hine was one of the exemplary expositors of the timelessness of human worth and spirit. A chance to see his work in all its glory is coming up. I encourage everyone to take the trip.

“Before Their Time: Child Labor Through the Lens of Lewis Hine,” a traveling photography exhibition of the New Hampshire Historical Society will be on view this summer at Manchester City Hall, One City Hall Plaza, from July 1 through August 31st. Hours are Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free.