patriotic duty ( Irwin, 2013 : 67, 79). As an organization promoting international humanitarian patriotism, it was the ARC’s role to raise awareness of suffering that needed alleviating and to build sympathy for victims. The Magazine hired Lewis Hine and other social progressive artists and authors for their skills at building affect and raising consciences ( Irwin, 2013 : 84–5). 3 Hine had established the reputation as America’s foremost social photographer 4 with much of his own ‘lens’ having taken shape through his studies in education and sociology. This, at a
play in humanitarian visual communication today, and what role they have played historically. Combining four historical essays with a number of joint conversations between historians and practitioners, we examine how, when, why, and in what shape humanitarian actors started to rely on visual media in the course of their history, what problems and dilemmas they faced, and what challenges they are up against in the present. Sonya de Laat’s contribution on refugee photography analyzes Lewis Hine’s
photography’s role in these metaphors, Miles wrote, ‘Photography’s metaphorical alliance with light ensured that the medium could serve as a valuable weapon against the obscurity of darkness.’ Miles, Burning Mirror , p. 58. She cited the documentary photographs of dark slums by Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine in the United States. 71 The light’s additional abilities to