# Lewis Hine Power house mechanic working on steam pump

- By: Lewis Hine
- Date: 1920
- Classification: Photograph
- Credit line: https://web.archive.org/web/20221204115953/https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/picturing_the_century/portfolios/port_hine.html links to hi-res image) Image is not currently (as of 2007-03-22) in the ARC catalog. File 69-RH is available…
- Museum: [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lewis_Hine_Power_house_mechanic_working_on_steam_pump.jpg)
- Rights: Public domain
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/commons/thumb/6/60/Lewis_Hine_Power_house_mechanic_working_on_steam_pump.jpg/1920px-Lewis_Hine_Power_house_mechanic_working_on_steam_pump.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Lewis Hine, 1920. Power house mechanic working on steam pump.

Records of the Work Progress Administration. (69-RH-4L-2)

Lewis Hine's 1920 Power house mechanic working on steam pump, one of his "work portraits", shows a working class American in an industrial setting. The carefully posed subject, a young man with wrench in hand, is hunched over, surrounded by the machinery that defines his job. But while constrained by the machinery (almost a metal womb), the man is straining against it—muscles taut, with a determined look—in an iconic representation of masculinity.