Lewis W. Hine
n.d.
"Village" Boys at the Recreation Room (School Buildings)

Gelatin silver print
Hastings Historical Society
Courtesy of Hastings-on-Hudson Historical Society (Lewis Hine Collection)
 
The following quotation from John L. Hopkins 'A Program for the Development of More Adequate Secondary Education in a Suburban Area' PhD dissertation, 1936 (School of Education, New York University) provides the context to this photograph.
 
"The winter program of juvenile recreation under the auspices of the Hastings Recreation Commission, with the Board of Education furnishing club rooms, is illustrated by Plates IV and V, pages 608 and 609. The types and character of children are skillfully depicted by the photographer. In Plate IV, leaders in the Boys' Recreation Club Room, are shown helping a group of boys maneuver an intricate railway system. The interest and attitude of these boys indicate that through proper environment and supervision, they may be developed into respectable and helpful young men.
 
When it comes to little girls from the "foreign" or congested area of Hastings, who can say that they should not be offered every means of protection at society's command? In Plate V, picturing the Girls' Recreation Club Room, the photographer has caught, in the faces of these little Polish- and Russian-American girls, glimpses of dreams, aspirations, and personalities capable of high standards."
 
[Thanks to the Hastings-Historical-Society for providing this information]
 
LL/8554