FARM SECURITY ADMINISTRATION

from RPS-Benelux Chapter eJounal - Volume 25 - Winter 2021

PEAT

The RPS Benelux Chapter HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY

The resettlement process had to be documented from beginning to end, starting with documenting the life of struggling families to the new and happy life in the new towns

In the previous issue of the Benelux Chapter

eJournal (Volume 24 / Autumn 2021) I described the overall mission of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and showed some images in the genre of applied photography to support the New Deal policy. In this article I show three projects that are related to the challenge of resettlement of deprived families.

The FSA actually started as the Resettlement Administration (RA), which was established in May 1935 to relocate struggling families to planned communities. From the start there was a need to justify the work of the agency and hence Rexford Tugwell created the Historic Section and hired Roy Stryker to lead this photographic unit. The resettlement process had to be documented from beginning to end, starting with documenting the life of struggling families to the new and happy life in the new towns.

SUMMARY

Out of the 170,000 FSA images that are kept in the Library of Congress only a few became iconic. Even the famous work of Walker Evans (‘Let Us Now Praise Famous Men’, 1941) was not initiated by the FSA but by Fortune magazine. Walker Evans took leave to work on this project, which in the end become a personal project.

But I hope that I have demonstrated in the two articles on the work of the FSA that studying those images that did not become famous or iconic is very rewarding and useful.

RUSSELL LEE IN LA FORGE

The photos in this panel are all from Lot 1192, taken by Russell Lee. The documentary is about former sharecroppers, just before moving from their shacks to their new homes. The captions in my selection mention: Southeast Missouri Farms, La Forge project, Missouri. The La Forge Project in Missouri was started by the FSA and developed a whole community, including homes, schools, community centres, and a store. It resettled one hundred families, 60 white and 40 black, on six thousand acres. Russell Lee is described as a photographer with a feel for the classes and cultures in America. In my personal selection he has photographed both a black and a white American share cropper family under similar circumstances. We see poor but proud people, respectfully photographed, trying to make a living and working towards a better life. The ladies working in the field are almost pictured as heroines which is enhanced by the low camera position.

From top to bottom © Russell Lee - LC-USF34- 031144-D © Russell Lee - LC-USF34- 031155-D

From top to bottom © Russell Lee - LC-USF33- 011529-M1

ARTHUR ROTHSTEIN IN CORBIN HOLLOW

For his first assignment in 1935, Arthur Rothstein was sent to Corbin Hollow in the Appalachian Mountains to photograph people that needed to be resettled. Resettlement had to happen because of the establishment of the Sheshandoa National Park. In an interview with Richard Doud (New York City, May 24, 1964), Rothstein describes that he was in a cabin on top of a mountain trying to get to know the inhabitants of Corbin Hollow and taking some pictures using the unobtrusive camera technique. Before he went out, he had discussions with Roy Stryker about what to photograph. In the interview Rothstein mentions the value of these photos as these people would lose the ‘picturesque quality’ of life in the mountains. My selection of images is taken from Lot 1419. The captions of the photos describe a less picturesque quality of life. Apart from mentioning that these people are about to be resettled, the captions, as context, describe them as: poor, without work and income, primitive and backward and having many children but not much livestock. It is unlikely that this information was provided by the people in the photo (as Arthur Rothstein did not know them well) nor is it likely that they had given permission to add these captions to the images. For example the caption: Virgie Corbin, Blue Ridge Mountain Girl. This girl who is about sixteen has the mentality of a child of seven. She has never advanced beyond the second grade. This project in the Sheshandoa National Park was heavily challenged in a documentary by Time but defended by James Deutsch in the Journal of American History, June 2012.

Page 92 | © Arthur Rothstein - Children of Charlie Nicholson who is being resettled on new land Page 93 | © Arthur Rothstein - Mrs. Dodson and one of her nine children

From top to bottom © Arthur Rothstein - Road to Corbin Hollow from Skyline Drive © Arthur Rothstein - Detail of cabin construction

From top to bottom - all photos - © Arthur Rothstein One of the Corbin boys Man from Nicholson Hollow with one of the few horses Mrs. Eddie Nicholson, who goes to the nearby resort to beg Virgie Corbin, Blue Ridge Mountain Girl Back porch of a Blue Ridge Mountain home Two of the Nicholson children and their only cow

PICTURING THE AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE

Greenbelt is a city in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States, and a suburb of the city of Washington D.C. It is the first and the largest of the three experimental (and controversial) New Deal Greenbelt Towns.

The Greenbelt project had to be promoted as part of the New Deal program. This is where the photographers came in to document the project from the early beginning and create photos that could be widely published in the media. The results are clustered in the collection of the Library of Congress under the label: Lot 1361. If you study this lot of photos, you can observe the progress of the project. In 1935 Carl Mydans takes images of transient workers clearing land while Arthur Rothstein is selected to cover the visit of some important officials. In 1936 winter delayed the project. Resettlement officers are visiting the building site and also President Roosevelt has an official inspection trip. In 1937 we already see completed houses, bus stop, schools, a post office, theatre and stores. The next year, 1938, shows the beginning of family life in the new community. While Arthur Rothstein is photographing the school; Marion Post Wolcott is apparently brought in to photography family life in a way that would fit into any women’s magazine. The project is finished in 1939 when Marion Post Wolcott covers the swimming pool and the medical centre while Arthur Rothstein again had his focus on the school.

If we look at the photos that have been produced, we recognise that this has one purpose only; to promote the Greenbelt New Deal project and the ideal American way of life in a brand-new model community. It did not really matter who would make the pictures as the assignment and the objective were clear.