Young Historians Visit Mia’s Photography Study Room
Each year, thousands of students around the country participate in National History Day. Working with their teachers, they select a historical topic and strive to gain an in-depth understanding of its significance. They delve into the past, conducting months of research in libraries, archives, and museums.
Equipped with their learnings, they then present their conclusions and evidence through papers, exhibits, performances, documentaries, or websites, moving through a series of contest levels where professional historians and educators evaluate them. In the process, they develop their communication, project management, and historical thinking skills.
At a school in Akron, Iowa, three sixth-grade students prepared for this year’s National History Day, hard at work on a project about Lewis Hine’s photographs for the National Child Labor Committee. Hine was a reformer and sociologist who joined the National Child Labor Committee as an investigative photographer. He covertly photographed the working environments and experiences of child workers around the turn of the 20th century, and his images made visible the dangerous, often lethal, working conditions they had to endure. Hine’s work was instrumental in the 1916 passage of the Keating-Owen Act, which established minimum age requirements and limited working hours for children.
The students’ teacher, conducting her own research, found that Leslie Ureña, Associate Curator of Global Contemporary Art at Mia, had written her dissertation on Hine’s Ellis Island photographs. She emailed Mia, and that’s how Ureña and Collection Care Specialist Joseph Doherty ended up welcoming the young historians and their parents to Mia’s Photography Study Room on April 11. Mia has 80 images by Hine in its permanent collection, and the students selected 10 that they wanted to view.
The group spent an hour studying the photographs. They discussed Hine’s life and work, archival research at museums, and the history of photography. Reflecting on their visit, one of the students shared, “We loved seeing the original photos that Lewis Hine took. Our group got so much information on Hine and his goal: to help end child labor.”
Mia wishes these historians and other students participating in National History Day the very best of luck!
Are You or Your Students Conducting Visual Research?
We look forward to welcoming you to the Photography Study Room at Mia, where individuals, groups, and classes can explore photographs from our permanent collection by appointment. You can schedule appointments using our online appointment form.
About Leslie Ureña, Associate Curator of Global Contemporary Art
Leslie Ureña joined Mia as Associate Curator of Global Contemporary Art in 2023. In her research and curatorial work, Ureña specializes in transnational art practices, migration, and the history of photography. Since her arrival she has curated and co-curated several exhibitions, including “Another Look” (2023), “Networks of Care” (2024), “Domestic Idols” (2024, co-curated with Casey Riley), “Counter / Culture” (2024), and “Remnants” (2025). She was also the venue curator for “The Shape of Time: Korean Art after 1989” (2024), organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Before Mia, Ureña was curator of photographs at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, where she organized numerous photography and contemporary art exhibitions. She’s worked in curatorial departments at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Dallas Museum of Art, among others. Ureña has also taught art history courses in Washington, D.C., and Taipei, Taiwan, where she led the international team of an emerging art gallery. Her writing has appeared in exhibition catalogues; collected volumes; and on theatlantic.com, artforum.com, caa.reviews, and ART iT. Ureña holds a BA in the history of art from Yale University and an MA and a PhD in art history from Northwestern University.
Meet the other curators in the Department of Global Contemporary Art.