3/24/98
*this class builds on the earlier discussion of "realism" in
conjunction with the photography of Jacob Riis, relating it to the
"documentary photography of the 1930s in context of the ongoing
relation between "realism" and the American liberal tradition from
the 1890s through the 1930s. Slides numbered as on handout sheet.
** introduction/review
1. American "liberalism" has changed character at critical stages in
U.S. history: Jeffersonian, Jacksonian, Progressive Era, New Deal,
1960s.I From the start (John Locke) liberalism has ben allied with
the empiricist/scientific outlook. In the modern period (since 1890)
has drawn on three sources all noted for their realism and
"scientific" approach to reality: photography, social science,
journalism. In the traditional p"progressive" version of this
history, this turn to "science" and "objectivity" was the essence of
the reorientation of liberalism at the turn of the century,
distinguishing it from older "moralistic" 19th century versions. For
this view see "Epilogue" to Vernon Parrington's Main Currents in
American Thought (1927-30), vol. III.
2. In recent decades however, historians have shown increasing
reluctance to take this "realism" at face value.
a. Richard Hofstadter Age of Reform (1955) argued that
"muckraking" was really only a cathartic exercise whereby the
middle class enjoyed "exposure" without really wanting change.
"Reality" was in fact the sordid underside of experience "exposed"
for its shock value and hence only the other side of the "moralism"
that distinguished progressive thought. This same moralism also
differentiated it from New Deal liberalism with its concern with
efficiency, management, and manipulation. .
b.Trachtenberg, Incorporation of America sees "realism" as way
middle class established cultural hegemony. Howells's realism
represented not only a device for the establishment of a monopoly of
"good literature," but by extension of a way "respectable" people
view the world. "Objectivity" is opposed to "sensationalism," which
now viewed as province of the lower class. Michael Schudsen
Discovering the News (1978) makes a parallel argument
concerning the development of journalism. Stange and Curtis raise
same questions re: photography.
C. Stott/Stange
3. Thesis: at the simplest level will examine the thesis that
"realism" is something other than at first appears in that all
photographers manipulating "reality" for an effect, which is in large
part culturally determined. Moreover, the nature of that manipulation
tells us something about change kn "liberal tradition" as it shifted
from :
(a) moralistic call for a return to "common" (= WASP middle class)
standards
(b) to "science" (as in "scientism") and finally
(c) to "modernism" (in Walker Evans, Russell Lee). Although
ostensible purpose of "realism" in all cases was to inspire social
reform, a more subtle effect was to distance and isolate the middle
class viewers from the social problems being depicted.
*** sources: William Stott, Documentary Expression;Stange,
Maren, Symbols of Ideal Life: Social Documentary Photography in
America 1890-1950 (New York, 1989); and Curtis, James , Mind's
Eye, Mind's Truth: FSA Photography Reconsidered (1989).
I. Louis Hine, Stryker, and Transformation of
Progressivism.
*discussing progressive thought with reference to antiformalism and
scientism, noted that it was part of general move from "languages" of
antimonopoly and community (humanitarianism) to efficiency and social
control. Same point can be illustrated nicely by seeing uses that
were made of the photographs of Lewis Hine in the 1920s in the
textbook by Rexford Tugwell and Roy Stryker, . Stryker is further
important because he was later head of the Farm Security
Administration (FSA) Photography project, which sponsored much of the
most important documentary photography of the New Deal.
A. Hines work with Pittsburgh survey reveals that eschewed "both the
facetiousness and narrative mode of his predecessors," and "achieved
a documentary style flexible and responsible to his subject ad yet
readily identified and associated with social welfare experts ad
expertise." [but did not sacrifice former to latter].
*Paul Kellogg's "Pittsburgh Survey" (1906-09 marked a transition from
the older moralistic style of muckraking, and early TR, to the
emphasis on the bureaucratic treatment of social "disorders" by
experts. Manages to keep balance between two traditions.This is
charcarteristic of later progresive era.
B. However use by Tugwell/Stryker reveals quite different outlook
where individual become "types" and human beings objects of planning
and manipulation by experts. Whereas for Kellogg and Hines the
problem was unresponsive government, for Tugwell/Stryker it was the
effects of an impersonal "modernization" and need to overcome what
William Ogburn the sociologist called "cultural lag."
Slides:
1. a. Hine, Lewis, "Out of Work, Homestead
Court", [1908]
b. Hine, [same photo as part of group
portrait of "workers in the Steel Industry," as composed by
Tugwell/Stryker
*Stange p. 101 makes the folowing points:
1. impersonality AS EACH REPRESENTS A "NATIONALITY" N..B
"AMERICAN")
2. captions suggest that the barrier to unionization is ethnicity,
and the photo communicates cvisually the absence of all traces of
communal life/aspirations that unite workers [e.g the Russian has not
fraternal hand on the shoulder as in the original photo]
3. carefully numbered
4. realtion of otutside frieze and iconic imagery at center--central
image dwarfs figures, but also overarchig symbol of MELTING POT,
which renders ethnicty to comon mold.
5. watchtower crane foreshadows future of managed progress (cf. F.W.
Taylor's exeroets. See Stange, p. 104 for detailed summary.
Stange p. 90 summarizes: "In the 1920s refrom was no longer
publicized with the hopeful idea that information about people might
interpret, mediate, and manage clas relations; rather the foal of
social publicity was the apparent elimination of class manifestations
altogther and the portrayal of socila and economic management as a
matter of smooth, humane, bureaucratic administraton."
2. a. Hine, "Doffer Family, Tifton Georgia"
[1909]
b. Hine., "Poverty Self Perpetuated",
from Tugwell, Rexford and Stryker, Roy, American Economic Life and
the Means of Improvement (1926)
Read: Tugwell text to this in Stange pp 93-94. Cf Hine's prose (p.
96) that blames the employer.
II. Documentary in 1930s
*FSA photographic project. (see Stange, and Curtis, Mind's
Eye) Two related questions:
1. what collectively was "documentary":? was it simply "realism" or
moreso? For answer explore various meanings of "documentary" as
outlined in Stott, ch. 1. From Stott, Stange, and Curtis see several
different hypotheses:
2. relative merits of various photographers, in particular Evans and
Margaret Bourke White
**to answer both questions must appreciate how all manipulated for
purposes, as documented nicely in Stange, and in greater detail in
Curtis.
A. Why "documentary" flourished in the 1930s
1. Political motivations. Hoover and Republicans had tried to "hide"
Depressions, thus New Deal wished nation to "see" it.
2. General distrust of authority, and wish to get "in touch." Feeling
for intimacy inspired by radio fireside chats, "This is London,"
"This is Prague").Possibly also to culture of consumption (and
advertising) that first isolated and commodified individuals, the
attempted to supply the missing emotional gratifications through
commercial means (see Marchand, Advertising the American
Dream). See e.g. ad in Stott: "Don't cry mother, it's only a
program"
3. New Deal makes official style. Tied to growing sense of "culture"
and America's awakening to itself as a "culture."
B. Took various forms
1. Martha Graham's ballet
2. Popular: newsreels, soap operas, :inside" books, photo mags
(Life, Look.
3. social worker studies
4. social science writing (:"case study" method, Chicago school urban
sociology).
C. greatest form, however, was documentary books, many result of FSA
project. These allow discussion if issues noted above.
1. Dorothea Lange
a. Lange's approach can be seen in "Migrant Mother,"her most famous
picture (see Curtis for detailed analysis)
b. but also in "Woman of the High Plains"
Slides:
3. a. Migrant Mother
b .Lange, Dorothea, "If You're Dead,
you're Dead, That's All," [Texas Panhandle, from American Exodus
1938]
c Lange, Dorthea [portrait of
woman]
2. Margaret Bourke White
a. began career as industrial photographer, virtually celebrating
capitalism and technology
b. after marriage to Erskine Caldwell, moves into recording of
poverty in You Have Seen Their faces
Slides:
4. a. Bourke-White, Margaret, "George
Washington Bridge" (two views)
b. Bourke-White, [factory
scene]
5. Bourke-White, from Erskine
Caldwell/Bourke-White, You Have Seen Their Faces [4 slides]
6. Bourke-White, Margaret and Erskine
Caldwell, from Say, is This the USA (1941) [5 slides]
3. Russell Lee
Slides:
7. Lee, Russell,"Mr and Mrs Andrew
Ostermeyer, Homesteaders. Woodbury County, Iowa",
[1936]
Lee, "Wife of a Homesteader" [
1936:hands only]
4. Walker Evans
Slides:
8. Walker
Evans, from Agee\Evans, Let Us Now
Praise Famous Men [4 slides]
Conclusion: What is the "meaning" of 1930s documentary.
1. one possible solution is to say that there as many meanings as
their are audiences, editors, photographers
2. but go beyond by returning to Stott's distinction in slightly
different terms.
a. doc as "data", but even more critically distinctive--of the value
of "objectivity" as a way of dealing with modernity
b. at same time subjectivity": emotional indulgence.
*Stange p. 130 gets at in noting that documentary "imaged an American
instrumentalism that eased accomodation to perpetual change and gave
grounds for popular approval of engineered progress. FSA photography
offered its urbanizing and suburbanizing audience a mode of "art" and
communication that conventionalized both currency and nostalgia; its
documentary style evoked a set of humanitarian responses that masked
the loss of once valued responsibilities, perceptions and
attachments....
Like many other artifacts of New Deal culture, the FSA collection
offers ...an instrumentalist's utopia, where the pain of change is
not only rewarded but also vindicated by ever-imminent progress."
Written by Robert Bannister, for classroom use in History 47,
Swarthmore College 1/98. May be reproduced in whole or part for
educational purposes, but not copied or distributed for profit.