Scholar Glenn Kurtz spotlights the construction workers immortalized in Lewis W. Hine’s legendary photographs—revealing a forgotten chapter of American labor.

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In his new book, Men at Work: The Empire State Building and the Untold Story of the Craftsmen Who Built It, Glenn Kurtz revisits the building’s construction from a perspective that has eluded previous researchers: the lives of the workers who labored on the site every day. Using Lewis W. Hine’s iconic photographs, collected in his 1932 book Men at Work, and materials from the Library’s Lewis Hine papers—Kurtz also draws on census, immigration, and union records, contemporary journalism, and the recollections of descendants to reconstruct the biographies of the immigrant, indigenous, and working-class men who built the Empire State Building during the Great Depression.

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ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Glenn Kurtz is the author of Three Minutes in Poland: Discovering a Lost World in a 1938 Family Film, which was named a Best Book of 2014 by The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, and National Public Radio. Three Minutes: A Lengthening, a documentary film based on the book, was directed by Bianca Stigter, co-produced by Academy Award winner Steve McQueen, and narrated by Helena Bonham-Carter. It received the inaugural Yad Vashem Award for Holocaust Documentary in 2022 and was an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival before being screened worldwide. Glenn’s first book, Practicing: A Musician’s Return to Music, earned critical acclaim from The New York Times, Newsday, the Los Angeles Times, and National Public Radio. An internationally-known speaker, he has taught at New York University and Stanford University.

READ THE BOOK:

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ACCESSIBILITY

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Glenn Kurtz © Beowulf Sheehan