The Steerage, from the magazine 291, no. 7–8

Photographer: Alfred Stieglitz, American, 1864–1946
Date: 1907, published 1915
Material: Photogravure
Classification: Photographs
Collection: Prints, Drawings, and Photographs
Current Location: Not on view
Dimensions: image: 13 1/8 x 10 1/2 in. (33.4 x 26.6 cm)
sheet: 15 13/16 x 11 in. (40.2 x 28 cm)
Credit Line: Funds given by Jane and Warren Shapleigh
Rights: Public Domain
Object Number: 81:1974

NOTES

This tightly crafted view of the lower-class accommodations of a transatlantic ship has become one of Stieglitz's most recognizable images. It is both a potent social document and an extraordinary composition. As he recounted: "The scene fascinated me: a round straw hat; the funnel leaning left, the stairway leaning right, the white drawbridge, its railings made of chain/I saw shapes related to one another-a picture of shapes, and underlying, a new vision that held me; simple people, the feeling of ship, ocean."

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