Alfred Stieglitz - The Steerage

Alfred Stieglitz is an American photographer known for capturing everyday moments during the beginning of the 20th century., While sailing from the United States to Europe on vacation in 1907, Stieglitz takes The Steerage (1907). The photo shows the contrast between two worlds, within the same journey. While the first class ticket holders can sit on the top deck, a crowded group of people stand on the lower deck of a ship, the steerage. The steerage provides the cheapest accommodation for passengers. Some of the people, wrapped in heavy coats, are likely returning to Europe, perhaps after failed attempts to immigrate to the continent beyond the Atlantic.

When you look at this image, what do you feel? Why is there such a stark contrast between the different ways of travelling?

Despite their deck floor, all the passengers find themselves in the same boat, in a state of transition, caught between where they come from and where they are going, both physically and emotionally. The Steerage is more than a snapshot of early twentieth-century life. It captures a moment that resembles countless others throughout human history, where people face boundaries within the same transitions between spaces.