The Steerage, Alfred Stieglitz, 1907
Stieglitz became mesmerized by the growing cacophony of society, of rising skyscrapers and soaring airplanes, and strove to create what he termed “straight photography,” offering truthful takes on the real world. In 1907 he was sailing to Europe, 4×5 Speed Graflex in tow, when he set off from the first-class deck and came upon the huddled masses in the ship’s steerage. “A round straw hat; the funnel leaning left, the stairway leaning right; the white drawbridge, its railings made of chain,” Stieglitz later wrote. “I stood spellbound for a while. I saw shapes related to one another—a picture of shapes, and underlying it, a new vision that held me.”