Created in the years between the world wars, the Industrial Life Photograph Collection at Baker Library reveals the colliding—and sometimes competing—messages of art and industry, education and public relations, humanity and modernization. Assembled in the 1930s by Harvard Business School colleagues Donald Davenport and Frank Ayres, the collection was intended to provide students, and America’s aspiring corporate managers, with visual data to study the interaction of worker and machine— “the human factor.” The introductory exhibition and web site include a selection from the over 2,100 images that comprise the Industrial Life Photograph Collection, featuring the work of such artists as Margaret Bourke-White and Lewis Hine. “The Human Factor” is the culmination of a multi-year initiative to identify, catalog, preserve and make available for research use the rich and expansive photographic collections of Baker Library, Harvard Business School. These collections total over 20,000 photographs documenting the history of industrial production in the United States and in South and Central America.

http://www.library.hbs.edu/hc/hf