Many people didn’t acknowledge or believe that child labor existed at the time Lewis Hine started photographing. His work exploited the horrible and unsafe conditions children were forced to work in to survive. His work isn’t pretty; it’s real. His most famous photos show children covered in filth with no shoes who are so small compared to the cotton machines they are working with. The elite class had no idea that children were fulfilling these jobs, rather they were oblivious and believed it was men and women. Little did they know that the men and women who worked low salary jobs also had their children working so the family could survive. Hine’s photos were released in newspapers and eventually exposed the horrors in the factories that child labor laws were put into place.