George Eastman Museum The crawlers "are old women reduced by vice and poverty to that degree of wretchedness which destroys even the energy to beg." They were so feeble from hunger and lack of sleep that they crawled on their hands and knees to get their primary form of sustenance, bread and hot water for tea. The crawler in this photograph was keeping a baby while its mother worked in a coffee shop.
For an analysis of this photograph: Juliet Hacking (ed.), 2012, Photography: The Whole Story, (Prestel), pp. 152-153
