Behind the Lens

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 6 – Favorite Photo

Prompt: Asking a genealogist to pick their favorite photo is like asking a parent to pick their favorite kid. Don’t stress on picking your absolute favorite – just choose one and tell the story of the people and place in the photo. Don’t forget about the “Why” – why was this photo taken?

Because powerful images are fixed in the mind more readily than words, the photographer needs no interpreter. A photograph means the same thing all over the world and no translator is required. Photography is truly a universal language, transcending all boundaries of race, politics and nationality.

–Arthur Rothstein

The image I have chosen for this assignment is one that I have incorporated in a previous post. I did not happen to mention in that post that this was a favorite photo of mine. But the great pride and admiration I hold for my maternal grandfather, Clifford Lorraine Harding (below right), and his work with Kansas farmers is, I hope, evident in that post. A seasoned farmer himself, he later worked as a conduit between various government entities and Kansas farmers—initiatives created through FDR’s New Deal.

The photo above was taken for the purpose of documenting this and other WPA relief programs and the jobs those programs created. I’ve always liked this photo, imagining the conversation between my grandfather and the farmer. Perhaps they were discussing something like soil additives or irrigation practices. Or speculating about the price of corn. Meanwhile, the little boy who has tagged along is obviously far more interested in the professional photographer, Arthur Rothstein.

Photographer Arthur Rothstein captured another photo of my grandfather working in the field. Two Men Discussing Farm Problems with County Supervisor, Jefferson County, Kansas, USA, ©Arthur Rothstein for Farm Security Administration (FSA), May 1936

While my favorite photo depicts what seems to be a moment of pleasant connection between a county farm agent and a regional farmer, many of Rothstein’s other photos show the hardships that necessitated the work of the WPA, e.g., abject poverty and families relocating due to the havoc wreaked by the Dust Bowl and the Depression.”

The same WPA program that funded my grandfather’s work also provided jobs for photographers and writers. While my favorite photo depicts what seems to be a moment of pleasant connection between a county farm agent and a regional farmer, many of Rothstein’s other photos show the hardships that necessitated the work of the WPA, e.g., abject poverty and families relocating due to the havoc wreaked by the Dust Bowl and the Depression

In researching the post I mentioned and linked to above, I ended up going down a rabbit hole in an attempt to find the name of the photographer of these treasured photos so that I could give proper credit to him or her. I discovered the website The Arthur Rothstein Legacy Project and the article “Rediscovering Arthur Rothstein’s ‘Photo Stories’”, written by the photographer’s daughter, Anne Rothstein-Segan. It is quite evident from the post that she is as proud of her late father’s work for the WPA as I am of my grandfather’s work for the same program.

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Forced to move by drought, North Dakota, 1936 Families were displaced by the Dust Bowl
Photo Credit: Photo by Arthur Rothstein, Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection

Flood Refugee, Missouri, 1938 Photo Credit: Arthur Rothstein

Tenant farmer, Tennessee, 1937
The collapse of the rural economy displaced farmers from their land.
Photo Credit: Arthur Rothstein, Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection

Dust threatens to engulf a home. Liberal, Kansas, 1936
FSA photos put a human face on problems such as “drought” and “failing farms” targeted by New Deal programs.
Photo Credit: Arthur Rothstein, Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection

Dust storm, Cimarron County, Okalahoma, 1936 Photo Credit: Arthur Rothstein

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In the current political climate in America, it is heart-warming to read Anne’s words and be reminded again of the truly good works that government is capable of doing when relief legislation is passed and given proper funding.

The words of Anne Rothstein-Segan:

Dad’s New Deal portfolio still stands out as surprisingly relevant. My father’s images from nearly 80 years past remind us that we still live among the dispossessed—those denied justice and made vulnerable by forces beyond their control—and that government has a responsibility to shield and support those who need a leg up.”