Part five. Project: Documentary and the gallery space. Exercise. Cruel and Tender.

Part Five.

Project: Documentary and the gallery space.

Exercise. Cruel and Tender.

Another broken link. Luckily I have a copy of Cruel and Tender and downloaded the brochure directly from the Tate web site.  

What comes across from viewing the photographs is how impersonal they are.  The images manage to remove the people from their personality.  While lacking warmth they manage to convey a feeling of the times and circumstance of their taking.  

The images taken by Boris Mikhailov are a cold representation of the the Russia we are not supposed to see; cold, dirty, and desperate.

Likewise with the images of William Eggleston with their portrayal of rural America which he shows as class ridden, lonely, and materialistic.

All through the book there are beautiful images that highlight the contradictions of the times in which they were taken.

Rineke Dijkstra.

I must state at the outset that I do not understand the images of the new mothers.  Be it my age or gender but I can find no beauty or relevance in them.  Perhaps they are too personal or too raw, but I fail to see what Dijkstra saw.  

The images of the bull fighters I find far more interesting.  These are the faces of ordinary men who are extraordinarily brave.  They risk their lives for, what must be, the highest of adrenalin rushes.  To pit themselves against an animal that, if it could, would kill them.  Removing them from the bull ring and isolating them in this way allows one to see the evidence of their encounters and look into their eyes.  

Fazal Sheikh.

Somalia is a country in name alone without governance or effective government.  Ruled, as it is, by warlords and tribal leaders all the population can do in hard times is to flee to other countries, like Kenya, that do have functioning governments.  

The pictures taken by Sheikh demonstrate the plight of these people.  All they can do in times of need is to make their way to refuge centres and wait for the world to feed them.  It can’t help that the population of Somalia has grown from 2.5 million in 1960 to over 10 million today.  The picture of Amina Ahmed Abdi (mother of ten) points to the future problems of Somalia.  What chance does such a poor country have if it nearly doubles it's population every25 years.

The technique of having his subjects looking straight into the lens lifts them from their surrounding and again, as with Dijkstra, allows one to look into their eyes and souls.

Assignment Four. How the gender, ethnicity and background of the F.S.A. photographers effected their work.

Assignment Four.

How the gender, ethnicity and background of the F.S.A. photographers affected their work.

The aim of this essay is to examine how photographers from different backgrounds approach the same subject.  Does the photographer's education, gender, ethnicity, or background influence their view of the world and how they photograph it?

One of the largest photographic projects of the last century was the run by the Farm Security Agency, and ran from 1935 to 1944, with the aim of recording the state of farming in the USA, with particular emphasis on the rural poor and their struggle to survive during The Depression and the Dust Bowl years..  Eleven photographers formed the core of the FSA and worked under the guidance of Roy Stryker whose remit was, according to Kathy Weiser in Legends of America, to,

“Introduce America to Americans”, (Weiser K. 2003) 

Although not a photographer Stryker was, never the less, a brilliant administrator and knew what he wanted from the project.  He is quoted in a study paper by Indiana University as demanding that the photographs be, 

”..related people to the land and vice versa”. (Smit. A. 2012)

Their work made for a pictorial record of over 250,00 pictures, of which only about a half survive.  (Weiser K. 2003) 

I have selected four of the photographers to examine how they each approached the above remits.  Did their varying background affect their work? 

Gordon Parks.

According to his entry in 20th Century Photography Gordon Parks was born in 1912 into a poor African-Amercan family in Fort Scott, Kansas.  He was the youngest of 15 children and from the age of 14, following the death of his mother, raised by an older sister in Minneapolis.  At 16 he was made to leave by his brother-in-law.  An entry in Bio says that as a child Parks suffered harsh racial discrimination, to the point where his  segregated high school barred African-Americans from participating in school activities and discouraged them from seeking higher education.  (Ed. Philippi S. 1996)

His early life was spent working as a musician and busboy.  In 1937, after seeing photographs and newsreels of migrant workers taken by the Farm Security Administration he bought a second-hand Voigtlander Brilliant camera and started out on his career as a photographer.  He worked as a fashion photographer until 1942 when he was recruited into the FSA.  In his entry in Photoquotations Parks is reported as saying,

“I picked up a camera because it was my choice of weapon against what I hated most about the universe: racism, intolerance, poverty. I could have just as easily picked up a knife or gun, like many of my childhood friends did…”  (Ed. McCulloch. 2016) 

One of Parks bast known Images, American Gothic, 1942, was taken at the offices of the FSA on the day of his interview.  According to an article in the Westchester County Historical Society Parks met with Roy Stryker, the head of the FSA, and was told to meet up with Ella Watson, a black office cleaner employed by the FSA and, as Stryker said, 

“Spend time with her. See what she has to say.”  (Kelly K. 2016)

 The result was the image of Ella Watson standing in front of the American flag holding her broom.  This was not just some random observation on the part of Parks.  Larry Duncan, an English photographer is quoted by The Guardian as recalling Parks saying,

“We went to Congress, and on the ground floor I just couldn't believe there were so many black faces - all the security guards and so on. Then we went up a floor, and there weren't as many black faces. Up another floor, where the important people were, and there weren't any."  (McCabe E. 2006)

A look back through the images taken by Parks at this time show how his history of discrimination became a clear focus for him.  One image, although taken later, reflect his treatment at school.  It features a group of African-American children peering in through a chainlink fence into a play area reserved for white children.

There is a quote in a paper, Contemporary Black Biography that sums up Parks drive and inspiration. 

“At first I wasn’t sure that I had the talent, but I did know I had a fear of failure, and that fear compelled me to fight off anything that might abet it.  I suffered evils, but without allowing them to rob me of the freedom to expand” (Gate T. 2007)

Parkes went to have a glittering career in music, writing, photography and film directing.  His attainments include; twenty books, twelve films (directing), three musical scores and numerous awards and honours.  Included in his books are a number on self improvement.  

Ella Watson.  The cleaner he saw in the FSA building. Gordon Parks.

The Fontenelle family attending the Poverty Board in Harlem. Gordon Parks.

A picture from a later era showing black children looking into a play area that their colour barred them from entering. Gordon Parks.

Sheldon Dick.

Another of the FSA photographers was Sheldon Dick.  His ancestry was just about as far away from Parks’ as it is possible to get.  Born, according to his entry in Wikipedia, into a rich family who funded him while he attempted to build a career in photography, film direction and writing. In an interview with Richard Doud, Roy Stryker is quoted as saying,

"Henry Lester was a partner of Willard Morgan in the early days of their book publishing. And Sheldon Dick was a rich man's son and he had a desire to do things, and I went up one time and they wanted to know if I would take Sheldon down to Washington on more or less a dollar a year, he would like to work, and I agreed to it." Doud R. (1963) 

“It is terribly important that you in some way try to show the town against this background of waste piles and coal tipples.  In other words, it is a coal town and your pictures must tell it.”  Doud R. (1965)

but according to Stryker the results were not what he wanted.  After an assignment to a mining area near Shenandoah, Dick presented his images , which were already captioned and printed, to Stryker.  In an interview with Robert Doud in 1965 Stryker is recorded as saying, 

“I went through the books twice, the pictures were lousy, just plain lousy, I was shocked that all the energy had been spent on typescript, I mean typeset and paste-ins.  It didn't work out. He tried two or three other things for us and it didn't work.”  Doud R. (1965).

It seems clear from this interview that Stryker did not think much of Dick’s work.  Dick only worked for the FSA from 1937 to 1938.  According to Stryker most of the images taken by Dick were of everyday scenes of family life rather than of the more powerful images taken by the rest of the FSA team.  

Dicks images  are of a very high quality but did not, quite clearly, meet the requirements of Stryker and the remit of the FSA.

Dick ended a not very successful career in suicide in 1950.  His images display a disregard for the dignity of his subjects and a disinterest in the aims of the FSA.

Strikers guarding a window entrance to Fisher body plant number three. Flint, Michigan, Jan.-Feb. 1936. Photographer: Sheldon Dick.

Sleeping in the Fish Market.  Sheldon Dick.

                                                 July 1938, Baltimore.  Sheldon Dick.

Dorothea Lange.

Born in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1895 her future was shaped by two events that occurred early in her life.  The first was polio, that she contracted at the age of seven, and the second was her father walking out on the family when she was twelve leaving them with financial problems.  According to a paper written by Jenny Marvel these setbacks shaped her view on the environment and humanity as well as leaving her with a pronounced limp. ( Jenny Marvel. Undated) 

On leaving home she moved to New York and trained as a studio portrait photographer.  At twenty three she moved to San Francisco and opened her own studio.  During the 1930s she documented the poverty in and around San Francisco for the State Emergency Relief Administration.  This led to her being hired by them and in turn recommending her to the FSA where Stryker employed her.  Their relationship, according to Marvel, was not always stable with them disagreeing on ownership of the negatives.  She also had a strong view on how the images were to be taken and presented.  She is quoted in 20th. Century Photography as saying,

“ Hands off! I do not molest what I photograph, I do not meddle and do not arrange”. (Ed. Philippi S. 1996)

According to Keith Davis in the  book,  The Photographs of Dorothea Lange , Lange’s approach to her subjects was a sympathetic one where she would form an informal relationship with her subjects, explaining why she wanted to take their picture.  Should they object she would put down the camera until she had built up a better rapport.  (Davis K.. 1995)

The picture that best exhibits Lange’s work is her Migrant Mother.  Lange’s description of the taking of this image typifies her approach.

"I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean- to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it." (From: Popular Photography, Feb. 1960).

Langes childhood is reflected in her work with its emphasis on women, children and the family.  It is not just her pictures that tell this story but also her approach to the subjects in them; gaining their confidence and trust so as to get the best out of them

Migrant Mother. Dorothea Lange.

Migrant Mother. Dorothea Lange.

Migrant Woman. Dorothea Lange.

Marion Post Walcott.

Marion Post Walcott’s background was far removed from that of Dorothea Lange’s.  Born into a wealthy but progressive family in Montclair, New Jersey.   With her sister Helen she attended a coeducation boarding school in Greenwich, Connecticut, spending her summers in Greenwich Village with her mother and enjoying all the bohemian delights of that era.  

She put herself through University in New York, financing herself by teaching the children of mill workers by day and the mill workers in the evening.  The Depression brought about the closure of the mill and therefor the mill.  This, according to Linda Walcott-Moore, led to Marion’s disillusionment with the American System.

She move to Europe, studying dance in Paris and child psychology in Vienna.  It was there she met the photographer Trude Fleischmann who, on seeing photographs taken by her, encouraged her to continue with her photography.

The rise of Fascism and Nazism in Europe and the closure of Vienna University forced her to return to the USA.

On her return to New York, now aged 25, she became a freelance photographer.  She attended the New York Photo League and there met the photographers Ralph Steiner and Paul Strand.

Following a brief time as a staffer on the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin she was invited to, by Stryker, join the photographic team in the FSA. 

According to Linda Walcott-Moore, Marion highlighted the contrasts between the rich and poor.   

“As an FSA documentary photographer, I was committed to changing the attitudes of people by familiarising America with the plight of the underprivileged, especially in rural America…”.  

In 1964 interview with Richard Doud Stryker said of Walcott,

She'd been doing photography for one of the Philadelphia papers, and she came down, and we needed an extra photographer, put her on. And if you look through the file, you'll find Marion has particularly a great sense of our land, of our terrain and a feeling of people on the land, probably more than some of the others. A great love of people, a great warmth and understanding of people. Marion also suffered from being a very attractive girl, and I always wondered how she could possibly get along. The War was just starting, and I asked Marion one time, I said, "Marion, don't you have some trouble around sometimes?" She said, "Yes, very often a local police picks me up. We have a Coke, and he asks me something about his sex life, and I ask him something about his, and by this time I look at my watch and say, 'If I don't get back to work, I'm going to get fired.’"(Roy Stryker. 1964)

In a paper, now in the Library of Congress, Beverly W. Brennan writes,

Although Stryker's discomfort with her traveling alone in socially conservative areas is legion, he used Wolcott's attractiveness and social skills to agency advantage. Conflicting agendas between public and private aid organizations and administrators with local rather than national objectives often diminished effectiveness, so he sent her as his diplomat to smooth difficult situations. Stryker sent Wolcott on endless routine assignments that she performed even when she had to work alone on a tight schedule, sometimes driving at night to complete her tasks, despite Stryker's admonitions not to do so. 

Wolcott's social contacts helped her gain access to juke joints and the freedom to venture into African American neighbourhoods and other places she would not have been able to go without introductions and escorts. Her photographs document the benefits of government subsidies to farmers and depict racial interactions and extremes of the country's rich and poor but she also convinced Stryker of the need to include coverage of the upper and middle classes in the Historical Section file. Beverly W. Brannan.  ( 2012).

Walcotts photographs investigate the inequalities of the time, both the difference between the rich and the poor but also that between whites and African-Amercans.

We Ain't Never Lived Like Hogs Before,

Migrant Family. Canal Point, Florida 1939. Post Walcott.

Gambling With Cotton Picking Money. Mileston, Mississippi, 1939. Post Walcott.

Brunch in Private Beach Club. Miami, Florida. 1939. Post Walcott.

Conclusion.

I set out to examine whether the gender, upbringing, or ethnicity of the individual FSA photographers had any influence on how they worked.   The suffering of the rural poor at this time in America’s history was well recorded by this group, but as I trawled through the available on-line images I became aware of how their personal histories affected how each of them recorded it.  Whether by accident or intent the diverse backgrounds of this group made each photographer record different aspects of The Depression.  

As best as I can in this short piece I have tried to show how each photographer was influenced by their past.  

Gordon Park’s early family life was certainly an influence on his FSA work with it’s focus on how poor blacks were affected by racism and the lack of work or prospects for improvement.  This work he carried through after his FSA employment.   

Sheldon Dick’s affluent upbringing gave him a very different view of the times and produced a number of unsympathetic images of striking workers and men idling their time away.  The fact that his father was in manufacturing seemed to have influenced his attitude and photography.  Stryker certainly didn’t like his work.

Dorothea Lange’s background as a child polio victim brought up by a single parent certainly influenced her view with her concentrating on struggling families and lone mothers.   

Marion Post Walcott interest seemed to lay in how The Depression affected family, children and Afro-Americans.   Using her gender and her mother's society connections as a calling card she managed to gain entry to places where others would have had problems and take pictures others would have had difficulty with.

This piece can only be seen as a superficial look at this subject but even so it still shows how photographers bring their upbringing, gender, and ethnicity to their work.  Today it is more likely to be the photographer's politics that has the biggest influence on how and what is photographed.  Whatever the subject all photographs bring their history and opinion to the image.

References:-

Brannan B. (2012). Marrion Post Walcott (1910-1990). A Biographical Essay. [Online] At:

https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/womphotoj/wolcottessay.html

Davis K.  (1996). The Photographs of Dorothea Lange. Harry n Abrams.

Doud R. (1963).Oral History Interview with Roy Emerson Stryker. [Online] At:

http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-roy-emerson-stryker-12480#transcript

Gale T. (2005). Contemporary Black Biography. Gordon Parks. [Online] At:

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Gordon_Parks.aspx 

Gorman J. (2001) What was Sheldon Dick's REAL mission in this area? [Online] At:

http://www.kanezo.com/sd/sheldondick.html 

Gorman J. (2001) New Deal Narratives - Visions of Florida. [Online] At:

http://www.oberlin.edu/library/papers/honorshistory/2001-Gorman/FSA/theoretical/shootingscripts/shooting1.html 

Kelly. K.Gordon Parks. (Undated) [Online] At:

http://www.westchesterhistory.com/index.php/exhibits/people?display=parks

Marvel J. (Undated) Dorothea Lange: The Depression, the Government, and the Photographs

http://www.eiu.edu/historia/marvel.pdf 

McCabe E. (2006) American Beauty - The Guardian - 10th. March 2006. (Online). At:

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2006/mar/10/photography

Ed McCulloch(2016) Gordon+Parks. [Online] At:

http://photoquotations.com/a/534/Gordon+Parks 

Smit. A.  (2012) . About FSA. [Online] At:

http://www2.ulib.iupui.edu/IFSAP/about. [Accessed: 24th January 2016] 

Gate T.(2005) Contemporary Black Biography. [Online] At:

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Gordon_Parks.aspx

Walcott-Moore. L. (1999). A biographical sketch by Linda Wolcott-Moore. (Online) At:

http://people.virginia.edu/~ds8s/mpw/mpw-bio.html 

Weiser K.(2015). Farm Security Administration - A New Deal. [Online] At:

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/20th-fsa.html

(Undated) Sheldon Dick. [Online] At:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheldon_Dick

Prints & Photographs Division staff, (1998). Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother" Photographs in the Farm Security Administration Collection: An Overview. [Online] At:

https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/128_migm.html

(Undated) Sheldon Dick. With the FSA. [Online] At:

http://www.liquisearch.com/sheldon_dick/with_the_fsa

(Undated) Gordon Parks. [Online] At:

http://www.biography.com/people/gordon-parks-37379

Word count:                    3218

Without quotes:             1846

This next part is the earlier version that was criticised.

I reduced the second version to four photographers and sought more quotes and, within the confines of the essay, a better understanding.

Assignment Four.

How the gender, ethnicity and background of the F.S.A. photographers effected their work.

The aim of this essay is to examine how photographers from different backgrounds approach the same subject.  Does the photographers education, gender, ethnicity, or background influence their view of the world and how they photograph it?

One of the largest photographic projects of the last century was the one run by the Farm Security Agency, which ran from 1935 to 1944 with the aim of recording the state of farming in the USA with particular emphasis on the rural poor and their struggle to survive.  Eleven photographers formed the core and worked under the guidance of Roy Stryker who, although not a photographer,  was a brilliant administrator and knew what he wanted from the project.  He is quoted in a study paper by Indiana University as demanding that the photographs be, 

”..related people to the land and vice versa”.

The selected photographers were a mixed group and included four women.  Their backgrounds were very varied and ranged from established photographers to one, John Vachon, originally employed as a filing clerk for the FSA who, with encouragement, became part of the photographic team.

Gordon Parks.

Born to a poor family in Kansas in 1912 and barred from higher education because of his colour Parks, never the less, managed to teach himself photography after buying a camera in a pawnshop.  His background gave him a unique standpoint from which to view the world and show how racism and segregation effected black farmers.   In his entry in Photoquotations Parks is reported as saying,

“I picked up a camera because it was my choice of weapon against what I hated most about the universe: racism, intolerance, poverty. I could have just as easily picked up a knife or gun, like many of my childhood friends did…”  

One of his most famous pictures is “American Gothic” which he took at the offices of Roy Stryker in Washington.  It features Ella Watson, a cleaner at the FSA building.  Parks noticed that there was a distinct divide in the rolls given to black and white employees at the FSA.  Larry Duncan, an English photographer, quotes Parks as saying, 

“We went to Congress, and on the ground floor I just couldn't believe there were so many black faces - all the security guards and so on. Then we went up a floor, and there weren't as many black faces. Up another floor, where the important people were, and there weren't any."  

Parks clearly wanted to change society so that black people could be seen as true citizens of America.  Following his employment at the FSA he went on to a glittering career in film, music , the arts, and photography.

Ella Watson.  The cleaner he saw in the FSA building. Gordon Parks.

The Fontenelle family attending the Poverty Board in Harlem. Gordon Parks.

A picture from a later era showing black children looking into a play area that they colour barred them from entering. Gordon Parks.

Dorothea Lange.

Dorothea Lange is probably the most famous of the FSA photographers with her “Migrant Mother” image.  Jenny Marvel, a graduate student at Historical Administration at Eastern Illinois gives some background to Lange’s motives in wanting to work for the FSA, and her reasons for concentrating on the families involved in this depressing time, and their living conditions.  At the age of seven Lange was struck down by polio, which left her with a pronounced limp, and  at the age of twelve her father walked out on the family and left them destitute.  At the start of the Depression Lange was running her own studio but, according to Emily Yoshiwara in The Great Depression in Washingto State, 

".. I was driven by the fact that I was under personal turmoil to do something". 

The story behind Migrant Mother is too well known to repeat here but is typical of her work.  Lange’s insistence on living in her car come workshop brought her closer to her subjects but displeased Stryker.

Migrant Mother. Dorothea Lange.

Migrant Mother. Dorothea Lange.

Migrant Woman. Dorothea Lange.

Arthur Rothstein. 

Arthur Rothstein, born in New York of immigrant parents, was very much the professional photographer and had studied under Stryker at Columbia University.   Rothstein was the first photographer that Stryker employed for the FSA project.  Rothstein’s attitude to the project is somewhat different from the preceding photographers in that he appears to pay more attention to the image than to the suffering of the people. In an interview for the Archives of American Art with Richard Doud in 1964 Rothstein said, 

“This record that I made I think served a very useful purpose. It showed how a certain group of people in the United States lived at a particular time, and they no longer exist. I think that it has a great deal of value. Some of the pictures I made were good enough to be considered fairly fine examples of photography”. 

 Of his most famous picture, "Coble and his two sons", he said, 

"I was about to get into my car when I turned to wave to [Coble and his two sons], And I looked and saw this man bending into the wind, with one of the boys in front of him and another one behind him, and great swirls of sand all around, which made the sky and the earth become one, 'What a picture this is!' and I just picked up my camera and went 'click.' One photograph, one shot, one negative." 

 This is the attitude of the professional; the image more important that the sentiment.

Coble and his two sons.  Arthur Rothstein.

Skull.  Arthur Rothstein.

James McDuffie, 1938. Arthur Rothstein.

Lee Russell.

Russell Lee, a trained Chemist, came to photography via art, in that he used his own photographs as the basis for his painting.  The art was dropped in favour of the photography.   The first of the images below get to the heart of how it feels to be displaced: fear, confusion and desperation.  Linda Peterson, head of photographic and digital archives at the Centre for American History said, 

“His essential compassion for the human condition shines forth in every image”.  

He wanted to get close to his subjects and have them understand why the pictures were being taken.   His background in art comes out in his images in both the framing and posing of his subjects, and yet his compassion still comes through.

.

Children of farmer sitting in automobile waiting for father to come out of general store, Jarreau, Louisiana, 1938. Lee Russell

Mother washing child's feet.  Lee Russell.

Men Talking on Porch of Store, Jeanerette. Russell Lee

Walker Evans.

Walker Evans' approach to the FSA project was a very personal one where he wished to continue his work recording everyday life in America; work he had been doing for some years before his engagement by Stryker.  His published images of what he saw as "road-side" America during The Depression were not only technically good but according to Jacob Heilbrunn in the Heilbronn Timeline of Art History, 

“…entered the public's collective consciousness and are now deeply embedded in the nation's shared visual history of the Depression”.   

Walker’s approach was that of a street photographer; looking for "the shot" as well working to the idealogical agenda being set by the project.   The three portraits are typical of his work; unsentimental and truthful.

Alabama tenant farmer.  Walker Evans.

Great depression woman.  Walker Evans.

Family Trodd. Walker Evans.

Marion Post Walcott.

Marion Post Walcott was another female photographer employed on the FSA project.  According to an article in Print and Photographs Reading Room kept in the The Library of Congress,  Walcott, unlike Lange, was not averse to use her gender, contacts, and good looks to her advantage.  Stryker used her as an envoy to gain access to people and places where other photographers would not be able to go.  Her contacts and knowledge of West Virginia, where she was working, came from a time when she and her mother distributed family planning literature to the poor in the area.  She concentrated mainly on three aspects of the project, one was the good work being done for the poor in the way of Government assistance, the second was the lasting conflict between the white and black communities, and the huge divide between the rich and poor.  Her work led to Stryker including a section in the Historical Section file of how the middle classes were also affected.  In a biographical sketch by Linda Walcott Moore Walcott is quoted as saying, 

 “As an FSA documentary photographer, I was committed to changing the attitudes of people by familiarising America with the plight of the underprivileged, especially in rural 

America…”.  

We Ain't Never Lived Like Hogs Before,

Migrant Family. Canal Point, Florida 1939. Post Walcott.

Gambling With Cotton Picking Money. Mileston, Mississippi, 1939. Post Walcott.

Brunch in Private Beach Club. Miami, Florida. 1939. Post Walcott.

Sheldon Dick.

Sheldon Dick was very much the his own man among this group of photographers, born of a wealthy family he was able to fund himself while working for the FSA.  He had his own agenda and ignored Stryker’s guidance as to what should be photographed.  In a letter to Dick, Stryker said, 

“It is terribly important that you in some way try to show the town against this background of waste piles and coal tipples.  In other words, it is a coal town and your pictures must tell it”.  

Dick continued with his own choice of subjects; bars, interiors and the poor surrounded by religious artefacts and left the project after one year.  Of his work Stryker said, 

“I went through [his albums of prints] twice, the pictures were lousy, just plain lousy. It didn't work out. He tried two or three other things for us and it didn't work.”  

Too much freedom permitted Dick to ignore the discipline of the project.

Strikers guarding window entrance to Fisher body plant number three. Flint, Michigan, Jan.-Feb. 1936. Photographer: Sheldon Dick.

Unknown man sleeping.  Sheldon Dick.

July 1938, Baltimore.  Sheldon Dick.

Ann Rosener.

Ann Rosener was another of the female photographers working on the FSA project.   A graduate of Smith College, she worked for the FSA from 1941 through to 1943 from Washington D. C. in the East to California in the West.   According to her biography in the Library of Congress, Rosener concentrated on social issues as they affected women, such as women working away from the home, providing a healthy home environment and also how, with the threat of war, people were overcoming social barriers to work together for the common good and specifically how women were taking over jobs normally done by men.  After her work with the FSA she stayed on with the now re-named Office of War Information where her concentration on the female view continued.  Her interest in the new roll of women in war time is clearly demonstrated by the images below.

19 year old Jewel Halliday. Ann Rosener.

WWII production line.  Ann Rosener.

Lever of Power 1942.  Ann Rosener.

John Vachon.

John Vachon was the odd man out of the FSA photographers in that he was originally employed as an archivist for the project, but on seeing the work being done sought to become a photographer himself.  With guidance from Walker Evans and Arthur Rothstein he joined the team as a photographer.  The Library of Congress’ entry on Vachon points out the moment,  on an assignment in Omaha,  when he realised he was a photographer in his own right.  He said later, 

“One morning I photographed a grain elevator: pure sun-brushed silo columns of cement rising from behind CB&Q freight car. The genius of Walker Evans and Charles Sheeler welded into one supreme photographic statement, I told myself. Then it occurred to me that it was I who was looking at the grain elevator. For the past year I had been sedulously aping the masters. And in Omaha I realized that I had developed my own style with the camera. I knew that I would photograph only what pleased me or astonished my eye, and only in the way I saw it”.  

A look through his photographs shows a style that today would be called street photography.  It has a spontaneity that is lacking in the work of, say, Ann Rosener or Walker Evans. 

Farm boy who sells Grit. Georgia.  John Vachon.

         Farmer from Chillicothe (1942). John Vachon.

Barber and shop, South Omaha, Nebraska. John Vachon.

Conclusion.

I set out to examine whether the gender, upbringing, or ethnicity of the individual FSA photographers had any influence on how they worked.   The suffering of the rural poor at this time in America’s history was well recorded by this group, but as I trawled through the available on-line images I became aware of how their personal histories affected how each of them recorded it.  Whether by accident or intent their separate and diverse background made each photographer record different aspects of The Depression.  

As best as I can in this short piece I have tried to show how each photographer was influenced by their past.  

Gordon Park’s early family life was certainly an influence on his FSA work with it’s focus on how poor blacks were affected by racism and the lack of work or prospects.  This work he carried through after his FSA employment. 

Dorothea Lange’s background of a sick child brought up by a single parent certainly influenced her view with her concentrating on struggling families and lone mothers. 

Sheldon Dick’s affluent upbringing gave him a very different view of the times and produced a number of unsympathetic images of striking workers and men idling there time away.  The fact that his father was in manufacturing seemed to have influenced his photography.  Stryker certainly didn’t like his work.

John Vachon’s late conversion to photography allowed him to bring a freshness to his work.  Everything was new to him and, as I stated earlier, has the feel of the street photographer about it.

Marion Post Walcott interest lay with how the Depression was affecting women.   Using her gender as a calling card she managed to gain entry to places where others would have had problems.

Trachtenberg. A. (1988) From Image to Story: Reading the File," Documenting America: 1935-1943, ed. Carl Fleischhauer and Beverly Brannan. Berkeley: University of California Press. 

Photoquotations. (2016) Gordon+Parks. [Online] Available from:

http://photoquotations.com/a/534/Gordon+Parks  [Accessed: 24th January 2016].

Burns. K. . Biographies. The Dust Bowl. 2012. [Online] Available from:

http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/dustbowl/bios/arthur-rothstein. [Accessed: 24th January 2016]> 

Smit. A. Indiana University-Puedue University Indiana (2012) . About FSA. [Online] Available from:

http://www2.ulib.iupui.edu/IFSAP/about. [Accessed: 24th January 2016] 

Marvel. J.Historical Administration at Eastern Illinois. Dorothea Lange: The Depression, the Government, and the Photographs.  [Online] Available from:

http://www.eiu.edu/historia/marvel.pdf. [Accessed: 24th January 2016].

Doud. R. Smithsonian Archive of American Art. (1964) Oral history interview with Arthur Rothstein, 1964 May 25. [Online] Available from:

http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-arthur-rothstein-13317http://. [Accessed: 24th January 2016].

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History (2004) Walker Evans (1903–1975) [Online] Available from:

www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/evan/hd_evan.htm. [Accessed 24th January 2016].

Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs Reading Room. (2013). Ann Rosener 1914-  2012) [Online] Available from:

http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/womphotoj/roseneressay.html. [Accessed: 24th January 2016].

Walcott-Moore. L. 1999. A biographical sketch by Linda Walcott-Moore. [Online] Available from:
http://people.virginia.edu/~ds8s/mpw/mpw-bio.html. [Accessed: 24th January 2016].

Wikipedia. (2015) Sheldon Dick.  (Online) Available from:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheldon_Dick. [Accessed: 24th January 2016].