Inscribed to Owen R. Lovejoy. An important presentation copy in a remarkable example of the rare dust-jacket, inscribed: 'To Owen R. Lovejoy / for his never-failing appreciation / of our work, – many of the results / being the direct outgrowth of his / suggestions and optimistic criticism. / May his vision never grow dim.' Owen R. Lovejoy was a vehement opposer of child labour. He served as the general secretary of the National Child Labor Committee from 1907 to 1926, where Lewis Hine was a staff photographer and art director of their magazine 'Charities and Commons (later 'The Survey') between 1908 and 1917.

Men at Work contains photographs made between 1920 and 1931, issued amid the worst employment crisis the United States had ever known. Hine saw it as a way of reaching out to schoolchildren, providing them with constructive role models and emphasising the human element of industry, with photographs of railroad employees, coal miners, aeroplane assemblers, steelworkers, and others. Among the most striking photographs are Hine's images of the construction of the Empire State Building, which Empire State, Incorporated, had used widely for publicity purposes.

Hine always insisted on exerting control over the layout of his photographs, regularly requesting to see magazine proofs before publication. It is probably for this reason that he was not selected to work for the Farm Security Administration during the 1930s, with Roy Stryker, head of the Historical Division of the FSA, expressing concern that Hine may be difficult to employ and that it would be impossible to make the type of arrangements that he would have found satisfactory. Men at Work is the only book of Hine's photographs published in his lifetime.

First edition, presentation copy inscribed on the front free endpaper; 4to (253 x 203 mm, 10 x 8 in); black-and-white photographs printed in gravure; minor foxing to endpapers, green cloth-covered boards, titles to upper side in black, mottling to boards along fore-edge, photo-illustrated dust-jacket, minor wear to edges, minor foxing to verso, price-clipped for presentation, a near-fine copy in a remarkable example of the rare dust-jacket; [48]pp. [With:] LOVEJOY, Owen R. The Negro Children of New York. New York, The Children's Aid Society, 1932.

The Photobook: A History I, p126; The Open Book pp108–9; Auer Collection p187.