Empire State Building Photographic Exhibit
Opens at Interior Department Today

WASHINGTON - A new photographic exhibition, The Rise of a Landmark: Lewis Hine and the Empire State Building, opens today and runs through August 17, 2002, at the U.S. Department of the Interior Museum. The exhibition features 50 black-and-white photographs that document the construction of one of New York City's most historic buildings, the Empire State Building. Constructed in 1930-31, the famous building is listed in The National Register of Historic Places, which is administered by the Interior Department's National Park Service.

"The National Register of Historic Places tells the story of America's history through her historic sites, districts, structures, objects, and buildings," said Interior Secretary Gale Norton. "The Empire State Building, listed in the National Register in 1982, serves as an elegant icon for a great metropolis, and a symbol of the technical prowess of U.S. industry in the 1930s."

The exhibit of modern gelatin silver prints made from copy negatives is on loan from the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, N.Y., whose collections contain nearly 10,000 of Hine's original photographs, negatives and artifacts. Hine uses I-beams and hoisting balls to create compelling compositions that focus on the drama of the skyscraper's construction and the daring of workers who fabricated the monument.

Born in 1874 in Oshkosh, Wisc., Lewis Wickes Hine was a sociologist whose photographs captured his concern for immigrants and working-class people. Early in his career, he documented the newly arrived immigrants at Ellis Island, children working in sweatshops, canneries, coal mines, and cotton mills, and European survivors of the First World War. As America became obsessed with modern machinery in the years following World War I, Hine photographed men and women at work in the newly mechanized environment and emphasized the human side of modern technology.

The Interior Museum is open to the public Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (except for federal holidays) and the third Saturday of each month from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free. Adult visitors must present a form of photo identification (such as a driver's license, student ID, or employment card) when entering the Main Interior Building which is at 1849 C Street, N.W., in Washington, D.C. Wheelchair access is available at the 18^th and E Streets entrance. For information, call 202-208-4743; for photographic prints, please contact Anne James, Assistant Curator, The Interior Museum at 202-208-4659.

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