New Deal Photograph Analysis
Lesson Overview
Photographs may very well be our favorite form of media, and have been almost since the first forms of photography appeared in the 1830's. Just think of all the sites that are dedicated to storing and sharing pictures online, Flickr, Picassa, Imgbucket, Shutterfly, Instagram, and more.
Users of Facebook, Google+, and for three people who still use Myspace all love pictures. Even Twitter, which boils down conversations into 140 characters, allows the sharing of pictures. In words that appear online many times, "if there are no pictures, it didn't happen." Digital photography has simply accelerated what was already popular.
History is concerned with the study of change over time. Photographs can show this in a uniquely powerful way. Those changes show in numerous ways, in changes in the skyline, landscape, neighborhood, appearance of individuals or groups. They reveal customs, preferences, and styles. You can see celebrations, work, play, home, courtship, marriage, children, responses to stress, hardship, and much more.
For this assignment, we will be looking at visual evidence from New Deal programs and agencies, which were created under the leadership of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. These programs had a powerful impact on the relationship of government to the people of the United States. Yet a study of New Deal programs often leaves readers with a disconnected list of 'alphabet soup' programs and no real grasp of the impact of the New Deal.
This lesson takes you through a process of examining primary sources, specifically photographs, to develop a sense of the profound impact the Great Depression had on real people's lives.
Using guidelines from the Library of Congress, you will systematically analyze one of the photographs from below. To help you with this, you will use the "Primary Source Analysis Tool," available HERE.
Directions on how to use the tool are available HERE. An example of how to complete the assignment is posted after the assignment details.
YOUR ASSIGNMENT is to choose one of the photographs, and work through filling out the primary source analysis tool. Complete all elements: observe, reflect, question, and further investigation. The more detail the better. You need to show serious contemplation of the question. You must also include the picture, or at minimum a direct link to the picture you chose for the assignment.
Photographs from the Great Depression
Click on the captions below to see the photographs.
Refugees
• Depression refugee family from Tulsa, Oklahoma, Dorothea Lange
• Part of an impoverished family of nine on a New Mexico highway, Dorothea Lange
• Son of depression refugee from Oklahoma now in California, Dorothea Lange
Houses
• The only home of a depression-routed family of nine from Iowa, Dorothea Lange
• Shanty built of refuse near the Sunnyside slack pile, Herrin, Illinois, Arthur Rothstein
• Tenement kitchen, Hamilton Co., Ohio, (boy and girl), Carl Maydans
• Tenement kitchen, Hamilton Co. Ohio, (family), Carl Maydans
Hooverville
• Dweller in Circleville's "Hooverville," central Ohio, (man and house), Ben Shahn
• Dwellers in Circleville's "Hooverville," central Ohio, Ben Shahn
• Dwellers in Circleville's "Hooverville," central Ohio, (Kids in doorway), Ben Shahn
• William A. Swift, once a farmer, now a resident of Circleville's "Hooverville", Ben Shahn
• Young boy in Hooverville, Ben Shahn
Men's dormitory
• Corner of dormitory, Russell Lee
• Corner of dormitory, homeless men's bureau, Sioux City, Iowa, Russell Lee
• Men's dormitory at night at the homelessmen's bureau, Sioux City, Iowa, Russell Lee
WPA (Works Progress Administration)
• Children of ex-farmer who is now working on WPA, central Ohio, Ben Shahn
• Ex-farmer and child, now on WPA, central Ohio, Ben Shahn
• Ex-farmer and children, now on WPA, central Ohio, Ben Shahn
• Wife of WPA worker, Charlestown, West Virginia, Marion Post Wolcott
Things to consider when analyzing documents.
Photographs are heavily mediated. What do I mean by that? They are useful in constructing and telling stories because they provide evidence of events, but the act of taking a picture is a ritual in itself. Sometimes the decision to take a photograph lends importance to an event that otherwise would be lacking. Some photographs are works of art deliberately created, think Ansel Adams, or Dorthea Lange. The creator has motivations for creating them.
They may be attempts to capture other art, like sculpture. Advertisers use photographs to entice, realtors to display, archaeologists to record, journalists to report, reformers to prod. Whatever the use, historians can use them, Cameras and film or memory are tools in the hands of the photographer, which means that the output is at least partially controlled, thus mediated.
For anyone who has ever worked in a darkroom, you know that there are lots of things you can do to interpret what the camera captured. You can control the size of the image, the framing, burning and dodging, type of paper, filters, etc. You can control even more when your darkroom becomes digital. Photos can often capture things the photographer did not see when taking the picture.
How to Read a Photograph
Viewing and reading a photograph are two different things. When you view it, you get an impression of the image. Reading it usually involves putting words with it. Some photographers help by putting captions with their photos or writing on the back of them.
I want to discuss the ways to systematically read a photograph. A good way to begin is to attempt to form a consciousness of the photographer. What did the photographer see? What did they possibly not see? What biases did they have? Did they pose people? Why did they pick the vantage point they did? Why was the picture taken?
How was it framed? How does the framing effect one's sense of having been there? Where was it taken? Indoors? Posed? What clues does it give to the cultural landscape? Natural landscapes?
What does it reveal about time? What time of day or year was it taken, or was it taken in motion?
Details. Lace on a dress, knick knacks on the shelf. What does it reveal about occupations, social class, tastes, and beliefs? Or values?
You can learn lots from the technical aspects of photographs as well. Types of lenses, flashes, types of printing, and more.
How do the people in the photo look? Shy, proud, scared, weak, pained suffering, curious, sexy, blank, bored, etc.
It may be useful to ask the same questions a newspaper reporter would use: who, what, when, where, why, and how. Some specific questions can include:
• Who created this primary source?
• When was it created?
• Where does your eye go first?
• What do you see that you didn't expect?
• What powerful words and ideas are expressed?
• What feelings and thoughts does the primary source trigger in you?
• What questions does it raise?
• What was happening during this time period?
• What was the creator's purpose in making this primary source?
• What does the creator do to get his or her point across?
• What was this primary source's audience?
• What biases or stereotypes do you see?
• Does it challenge your assumptions about the past?
• What primary or secondary sources support or contradict your conclusions?