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The Steerage

Photographs

The Steerage is a black-and-white photograph made by Alfred Stieglitz in 1907, depicting men, women and children crowded on the lower steerage deck of an ocean liner, framed by the ship's stairway, funnel and gangway into a tightly interlocking geometric composition. Stieglitz took the picture while traveling from New York to Europe, so despite its later popular reading as an image of immigrants being turned away from America, the passengers shown were more likely returning laborers on temporary visas rather than rejected arrivals. Regarded as one of the first photographs valued for its formal, almost abstract structure as much as for its documentary subject, it is widely credited as a founding image of photographic modernism.

Facts
Year Created
1907 1
Medium
Black and white photograph 1
Classification
Genre
Photography 1
Medium
Medium (category)
Photograph 1
Connections

Created By

In Form

Photography, Art Forms
Source The Steerage (Wikipedia)

In Genre

Photography, Art Forms
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Located In

Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is located.

Source Art Institute of Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago open collection record: The Steerageplace_of_origin
Quote, place_of_origin
"place_of_origin": "United States"
Sources
1. The Steerage (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia
  • Introduction, sentence 1 (medium)
    The Steerage is a black and white photograph taken by Alfred Stieglitz in 1907.
  • Introduction, sentence 1 (creation year)
    The Steerage is a black and white photograph taken by Alfred Stieglitz in 1907.
  • Lead section
    The Steerage is a black and white photograph taken by Alfred Stieglitz in 1907.
  • In Form: Photography, lead paragraph
    The Steerage is a black and white photograph taken by Alfred Stieglitz in 1907. It has been hailed by some critics as one of the greatest photographs of all time because it captures in a single image both a formative document of i
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