10/11 Academic Decathlon The Great Depression Art Selection #18 - Nighthawks

Nighthawks, Edward Hopper, 1942, Oil on canvas, 84.1 x 152.4 cm (33 1/8 x 60 in.), The Art Institute of Chicago

Edward Hopper studied at the New York Institute of Art and Design and became a commercial illustrator. He went to Europe in 1906, but just like Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton, he did not embrace the theories and techniques of modernism. He preferred painting in a realistic style. Though he lived in the city, he was preoccupied with isolation and loneliness. His paintings reflect this duality - single figures in communal spaces, cities deserted except for one person. He did not initially enjoy success from his personal artwork and had to continue to work as a freelance commercial artist. By the time he was 40, he had only sold one painting.

He married Josephine Nivison who helped him promote his art. She was an extrovert, he an introvert, and she had a good instinct for business. She helped him get six of his paintings into an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in 1923 and that proved to be the turning point for him. He gained attention, sales and commissions and was able to quit his job and begin to paint full time. The critics loved his work. He sold paintings to major museums and became financially comfortable. His peak productivity time was during the 1930s, but he painted until he died in his studio in 1967. His wife bequeathed his artwork to the Whitney Museum in New York.

Nighthawks shows a corner diner brightly lit against the night. The glass walls provide an easy view into the diner and the contrast between the spotlighted inhabitants and the darkened street make it seem like actors on a theater stage. We see them, but they do not notice the viewer. The scene is unremarkable, people dining, talking, a couple together, one man sitting at the counter alone. The server is waiting on them, but at this moment in time is also a bit disconnected and off to one side. Detail is spare both in the diner and on the street. You don't see anything in the shop windows, no litter on the streets, no sign of humanity except the people we see. It's almost as if the city is empty except for these four people and the scene has a quality of eerie solitude about it. (Anybody ever see the "Twilight Zone"?) We see a story, but don't know what to make of it. Barbara Haskell, an art historian, calls this "suspended narrative" or a "narrative of inaction". It's compelling for the viewer - you can make up your own story. Hopper gives the viewer a lot of creative license in the interpretation of the scene. What do you think is going on?

Self-portrait, Edward Hopper, 1925-30

10/11 Academic Decathlon The Great Depression Art Selection #17 - And the Migrants Kept Coming

And the Migrants Kept Coming, Jacob Lawrence, 1940-41. Tempera on gesso on composition board, 12 x 18" (30.5 x 45.7 cm), The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

Jacob Lawrence did not have a stable life - his parents divorced and he moved from one foster care home to another until he was about 13, then he and his brothers and sisters went back to live with their mother. He took art classes early and went on to study at the Harlem Art Workshop, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the American Artists' School. Outside of the art classes he took, the also got a lot of energy and inspiration from the artists that had flourished during the Harlem Renaissance. (See the post done about Aaron Douglas on this blog in October 2010)

He was a mover and a shaker. He had a studio while he was a student and got a solo exhibition of this work at the Harlem YMCA in 1938. At that time, he made small paintings reflecting daily life in Harlem. He was a product of his neighborhood and drew a lot of inspiration and identity from Harlem. He also was interested in history and did a series about Frederick Douglass, a former slave and orator. These were well-received, so he did another series about the Underground Railroad leader Harriet Tubman, Haitian liberator Troussaint L'Ouverture, and abolitionist John Brown. These series prepared him for a huge project he would undertake: a 60-painting series on the Great Migration. This is the work that would jettison him into the larger art world - he became the first African American artist to have one of his works included in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

This work, And the Migrants Kept Coming, was the last painting in the Great Migration Series. A crowded railroad platform is shown and the wavy lines beneath this platform suggest water beneath a dock. The composition is crowded with people, young and old with their luggage. The way the image is laid out, you can imaging people stretching beyond the canvas edges in both directions. The people lack faces or individualized features - this helps the viewer think of them as "anyman" and connects to the larger idea of vast numbers of people looking for a better life; people who are willing to leave their own lives behind in the hopes of finding a better one. He uses only a few colors, but even though his figures are reduced to shapes, the viewer recognizes the image as many men, women and children on the move. There is not texture or nuance in this painting, and the paint he uses is a matte finish - a finish that is dull and unreflective. All of the paintings in this series use the same elements of simplified shapes out of seven colors which unifies the group and makes the series visually cohesive.

Many African American people were poor sharecroppers in the South - they owned nothing and eked out a subsistence living. The industrial boom centered in the northern part of the United States in the early part of the 20th century and promised jobs and a better life. Huge numbers of African Americans migrated to the north and poured into cities such as Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit and New York. Because discrimination was still a stronghold across the nation at that time, these immigrants would form their own neighborhoods such as Harlem in New York. Their move to these new cities was a mixed bag - they may have found work and a new life, but they did not escape the prejudice and discrimination that they had experienced in the South. Racial tensions resulted from this new influx of people.

Lawrence's documentation of this phenomenon is based in history. He researched the Great Migration and strove to document and educate the viewer about the event. Each panel has a short title that is descriptive of the scene. The early paintings depict scenes of life from the South and show the reasons the people decided to leave. There are images of withered cotton plants and is entitled, "They left because the boll weevil had ravaged the cotton crop." The middle paintings go back and forth between the South and the North. Then the later paintings show the trials and the triumphs of the migrants in their new lives. These paintings resemble a storyboard for a cinematic undertaking. The critics responded so well to this monumental work the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. and the Museum of Modern Art fought over who would own the complete series. In the end they split the paintings with the Phillips getting the odd-numbered panels and MoMA receiving the even numbered panels. Cool! How about that? He may have also been the first African American artist to have two major museums fight over his work!

Jacob Lawrence self-portrait, 1977, gouache on paper

10/11 Academic Decathlon The Great Depression Art Selection #16 - Departure of the Joads, from the Grapes of Wrath

Departure of the Joads, from The Grapes of Wrath, Thomas Hart Benton, 1939, Lithograph on ivory wove paper, 327 x 470 mm (image), The Art Institute of Chicago

Thomas Hart Benton was a rebel. The men in his family were professional politicians and military men - his great-great grandfather was governor of North Carolina, his great-great-uncle colonel in the Confederate army, his father was a colonel, and Congressman. But Thomas did not follow in the steps of his family, he left military school in Missouri in 1907 to go study at the Art Institute of Chicago. Eventually he studied in Paris during a period when Modernism was flourishing. When he returned to New York, he became an art teacher to Jackson Pollock and Rita Piacenza. Pollock is the famous abstract expressionist (who went on to be called "Jack the Dripper") and Rita became Benton's wife. He was in the midst of a variety of styles of art were exploding, but none of them really resonated with him.

When Benton's father fell ill, he returned home to Missouri to sit as he was dying. It became a pivotal moment in his life and he wrote about it in his memoir:

I cannot honestly say what happened to me while I watched my father die and listened to the voices of his friends, but I know that when, after his death, I went back East, I was moved by a great desire to know more of the America which I had glimpsed in the suggestive words of his old cronies...I was moved by a desire to pick up again the threads of my childhood.

So he began painting rural scenes and people from the Midwest and made these images symbols of the struggles and triumphs that happened in these humble places. Benton was at the forefront of a new "ism", this one American - Regionalism - one that is synonamous with the 1930s. He painted a series of murals for the 1932 World Exposition in Chicago depicting the history and culture of Indiana. He did not censor the bad with the good and included images of the Ku Klux Klan burning a cross, unemployment lines and labor riots. Though critics railed at these images being so public, Time Magazine put him on the cover and declared him to be one of the definining artists of the time.



Trying to take this subject matter and interest the art scene in New York was another matter. New York was on the cusp of becoming the art center of the world and tastes favored the modernism coming out of Europe, not the rural, earthy images of people and places in America's heartland - it just wasn't sophisticated enough for that scene. He turned his back on New York took a teaching position at the Kansas City Art Institute and taught and worked until his death in 1975. He is one of the most important artists of his day and his work is still respected as central to the Regionalism movement.

The series he did about The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, include a lithograph entitled Departure of the Joads. There are many ways to make prints (see this excellent explanation called "What is a Print" by MOMA); a lithograph print has the image drawn on stone or metal instead of being etched into metal.

This lithograph illustrates a scene from the Grapes of Wrath, the moment that the Joad family is preparing to leave the poverty they faced in Dust Bowl of Oklahoma in order to find a better life in the rich fields of California. The image is printed in black and is rich in tones of grey between areas of black and white. The crescent moon is about in the center of the print and lights up part of the sky while the other half remains dark.

One detail of Benton's style is the curving lines you see everywhere: the ground, the clouds and even the figures undulate which creates a sense of movement. The house, clouds and logs all lead your eye to the family - even the light, moonlight sky highlights them in their departure activities. Not all of the family members are glad about this move - the women and Grampa (who sits forlornly by the door of the shack) look dejected and powerless about the decision. Ma Joad embraces Granma to support her in her decision to leave with the family, leaving Grampa behind - he refuses to leave. The scene is packed with a lot of emotion, but the artist puts almost no facial features in the characters, and relies on the body language and poses to tell the viewer what is happening.

Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck's novel was published in 1939 and one of the movie studios, 20th Century Fox, jumped on the book to use for a movie version. Benton was commissioned by the studio to produce the images to promote the film. Five of the artworks were portraits of the characters, but The Departure of the Joads was the sixth work he made and turned out to be the most powerful and long lived. It was enlarged to billboard size and he also reproduced it in color as a painting. It was also included in its original form in the 1940 edition of the novel.

American people across the nation identified with this powerful image - it reflected the hard times they had been through with the Great Depression and the feelings so many people felt - anxiousness, sorrow over broken dreams but a tentative optimism that is so characteristic of American people. The road represents the future and a journey to a better life. His image represents both spectrums - Grampa's inability to forge ahead and embrace change alongside Granma's hesitancy and anguish about the choice she is making. But the men of the Joad family have the courage to carry the family ahead. All of these emotions permeated the country in the 1930s and this image captured the essence of an important historical period.

On a personal note, I was speaking to my own students Friday about the hardships that this country is experiencing now. We talked about other periods of hardship our young country has gone through. This image is a powerful one today showing the characteristics of the people in this country that have made it great: vision, determination, hard work, sacrifice and grit. One of my students how long this current period of hardship would last, 5 yrs? I don't know the answer, but I have faith that if we pull together, love and support each other, we can come out of this stronger than ever.

Thomas Hart Benton self portrait, 1972

10/11 Academic Decathlon The Great Depression Art Selection #15 - Cow's Skull with Calico Roses

Cow's Skull with Calico Roses, Georgia O'Keefe, 1931, Oil on canvas, 91.4 x 61 cm (36 x 24 in.), The Art Institute of Chicago

Georgia O'Keefe is one of the most recognized artists of the twentieth century. It's rare to find such an accomplished woman in the art world - it has historically been a career for men. Even today, women are not on an equal footing with men in the business of art - check out the Guerilla Girls for more information about that and to see about their activisim! O'Keefe was a strong woman who followed her passion and became an icon in the art world, especially for aspiring women artists.

O'Keefe studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and at the Art Students League in New York and was exposed to a new art trend: imitative realism - a movement that was meant to artistically reproduce nature as the artist saw it. When O'Keefe took a summer class for art teachers, she was introduced to Arthur Wesley Dow who had a passion for non-western art, especially Japanese art. He believed that color, line, light and dark tones should be balanced. O'Keefe connected with these ideas and began to experiment with them. Her initial work was brought to the attention of photographer and art dealer Alfred Stieglitz. Without her knowledge, he put her work in an exhibition at his gallery in New York, 291. Her work was a hit and Stieglitz became a huge supporter of hers and began regularly exhibited her work. He was able to get her to move to New York and paint full time. They married, lived and worked together until 1946 when Stieglitz died.

O'Keefe began with paintings of New York, flowers and plants. Her flower paintings were so close up, you lost the overall image of the flower and just focused on the details. It's said that O'Keefe responded about these paintings once by saying she wanted the viewer to stop and really look at the flower. Her love for nature took her out west to New Mexico and one visit was all it took to hook her for life. Take a look at this 10 minute video and listen to her tell her story about her love of New Mexico. She began painting desert scenes, including bones and skeletons of dead animals. The pure line, light and shade she used in her other paintings transferred perfectly to these new subjects. She kept going back to the Southwest all through the 1930s until Stieglitz died then she settled in Arizona and lived out her life into her 90s. Her work became so important, she was given a solo retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the first woman to receive such an honor.

This work, Cow's Skull with Calico Roses, uses many shades of white to create the skull and roses over an unidentified white background. The value creates an image that looks three dimensional (remember, it's painted on a two dimensional canvas). It is symmetrically balanced with the focal point centered in the picture plane. The painting is a still life, but the composition is strong and bold. O'Keefe loved painting nature, and this skull was beautiful to her, not morbid. The juxtaposition of the soft flowers with the brittle bone make for an interesting combination. They could be speaking of both life and death, but ultimately speak of the beauty of nature. Her approach to her paintings is pure and direct - she had an eye for capturing nature and detail without making it fussy and busy. Her paintings are elegant, spare and compelling. Her work is beautiful and haunting and helped establish a modern aesthetic in the world of art.

This post seems woefully incomplete. Stieglitz and O'Keefe had a powerful love story and an incredible artistic connection. He was one of the twentieth centuries most reknowned photographers and Georgia was often his photographic muse. I have always enjoyed reading biographies of artists throughout my life, and reading their biographies were some of my favorites. Explore their lives for yourself - you won't regret the time invested.

10/11 Academic Decathlon The Great Depression Art Selection #14 - American Gothic

American Gothic, Grant Wood, 1930, Oil on Beaver Board, 78 x 65.3 cm (30 3/4 x 25 3/4 in.), Signed on man's overalls: GRANT / WOOD / 1930, The Art Institute of Chicago

This is one of the most interesting paintings - not because I think it's such a fantastic work of art, but because it has spawned so many variations and has been used in advertising ad nauseum! Right up next to the Mona Lisa, I think this painting has a notoriety that is astounding. It has a ton of parodies - check out this site that shows some of them. You know what they say, "Imitation is one of the sincerest forms of flattery." Grant Wood should fee really flattered! Let's see how this painting got to be so famous.



Wood was one of the artists that started a new movement of art in the United States, Regionalism. For most of Western art history, European art and artists drove the boat. Let's face it - with the Greek, Roman, and Renaissance artists (to hit the high points) all centered in Europe, it's no wonder it was so important. Paris was the art capital of the world until the mid-twentieth century when it shifted to New York. American artists in the twentieth century wanted to begin their own traditions and began breaking away from the European tradition. Artwork that was based not only in realism, but also reflected American towns and people became the subjects of the paintings of Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton and John Steuart Curry. Grant Wood's American Gothic was a hit when it was first exhibited and it has remained an icon for Midwestern America.

His early art education included metalworking, silversmithing, woodworking and jewelry-making. The Craftsman, or Arts and Crafts movement, was a big influence in his artistic style. It helped that he had so many skills because he was able to support himself as a silversmith while he studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1934 he became the director of the PWAP for Iowa and was able to draw from the artistic community he had launched by involving many of the Regionalist artists to work on public art projects. From 1934 until his death in 1942, he was a respected painter and professor of painting at the University of Iowa.

Let's take a closer look at the painting - a man and woman stand formally in front of a farmhouse - they look serious and stern. Though the house is in the background, the painting is set up like a portrait. You can see a Gothic-style window in the house, a corner of a red barn and some treetops in the background. The couple are dressed in their finest clothing - the woman has a white collar with a cameo fastened at her neck, the man is wearing a formal dark blue jacket over his overalls and work shirt. Holding a pitchfork in his hand, his face tells of a life of physical labor and exposure to the elements.



The farmhouse looks a bit like a bungalow with Gothic church detailing. The window is arch shaped and has a tripartite (three-part) division, just like the windows in Gothic churches in Europe. There are other Gothic references: the lightning rod that is cut off could represent a cross and the stiff postures of the couple resemble the carved saints that might surround an entrance to a Gothic cathedral. There are lots of decorative details, patterns in the fabrics, details in their clothing, the grain of wood the house is made of, which makes the painting super realistic. So realistic, you think he has documented a moment in a farm couple's life. But Wood carefully set the scene himself - the woman is his sister and the man is his dentist. Everything, man, woman and house, were sketched separately and combined into his composition.

There is some ambiguity in their countenances - the woman is staring off with an expression that could be worried, dreamy or distracted, but the man confronts the viewer's gaze directly. His grip on the pitchfork communicates his ownership of all you see in the picture - he is protective and proud. The seriousness of the painting tips just slightly into satire. Is he honoring this couple or mocking them? Even when the painting was first exhibited, no one was quite sure what his intentions were. He never tipped his hand; he just explained it as part of the Regionalism movement. Smart guy. Artists do not always have to tell everyone what their work is about - it can be up to the viewer to make their own meaning. Is this one of the reasons this painting has been parodied so much, because it already has this edgy quality to it? What do you think?

Grant Wood Self Portrait, 1932

10/11 Academic Decathlon The Great Depression Art Selection #13 - Winona

The Winona, 1935 Sears Honor-Bilt Homes

This Honor-Bilt model home was the top of the line (and the most expensive) for Sears' home kits. They had lesser grade structures - the Standard Built and the Simplex Sectional. In the 1930s, this house would have cost between $721 and $1998, which would be from $10,000-25,000 in today's dolllars. The style is a bungalow-style house from the Craftsman movement. The Craftsman movement was one that wanted to go back to a handmade look. After the advent of the Industrial Revolution, there was a return to things that looked handmade and not machine made. A bungalow is a small, intimate dwelling and has been a popular house throughout the 20th century. You will hear of bungalows in California, where they were widely built, but they are super expensive in that real estate market now!

They typically have covered porches and low-pitched roofs. There are deep overhangs and exposed beams. The look is simple, square and there is limited space. In order to make the small space seem bigger, the main spaces (kitchen, living room and dining room) are open to each other with built-in furnishings. You can see the floor plan in the image post. The main living areas are on the left and have arched openings to the center of the structure. The right side of the building has the bedrooms, bathrooms and closets. There was some customization available - the customer could choose between two and three-bedroom designs. Or, they could flip the design so the bedrooms were on the left. The house came with a basement and an attic and the owner could add a garage or a carport.

These kits made owning a home very affordable. Because Sears could mass produce these, and the houses were limited to the customization, they could keep the price down, more people could afford to build them and it really upgraded their life in spite of their limited incomes. Compare these prices to the $155,000 it took to build Fallingwater (the next post down), and you can see why they were popular! In the 1930s, the average salary was $1,600, so even though these houses were inexpensive, they were still a commitment to the buyer. In order to make it more attractive for potential home owners, Sears, Roebuck and Company set up financing so people could purchase their homes with a loan that had 6-7% interest. Coupled with the steady growth of the automobile industry, the middle class was beginning to boom in the early part of the 20th century, and the average consumer was in debt for a house and a car. Debt spending had begun on a larger scale in the U.S.! But, in the end, the Great Depression hit even this industry and during the 1930s Sears stopped offering the financing because people could not keep up their payments. Sales fell and in the 1940s Sears stopped offering mail-order homes all together. During the 24 years they sold the house kits, between 70,000 and 75,000 people bought them and there are still many Sears houses standing today.

10/11 Academic Decathlon The Great Depression Art Selection #12 - Fallingwater

Fallingwater, Bear Run, Pennsylvania, Frank Lloyd Wright, Designed 1935, Built 1936-39

Good grief! Where do you start? Entire books have been published about this magnificent work of architectural genius. Wright was a born architect and never strayed from his course, even when he had hard times (which he did - boy, oh boy, did he ever). He was a singleminded man, designing, building, and teaching. Any city around the country that has a building of his design touts it. But Fallingwater is one of his iconic works (alongside the Guggenheim in New York City in this blogger's humble opinion).

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867 - 1959 - he lived to the ripe old age of 91!) was born and raised in Wisconsin. From an early age, he had an interest in architecture. His architectural apprenticeship was in the firm of the famous Chicago architect, Louis Sullivan, who is considered to be one of the fathers of modern architecture. Their working relationship came to an end when Sullivan found out Wright was working on commissions outside the contractual agreement they had for his employment. Wright went out on his own and designed houses in the Chicago area. He developed a new style of architecture known as the Prairie Style. Prairie Style homes have these features: low-pitched roof, overhanging eaves, horizontal lines, central chimney, open floor plan and clerestory windows.

He might have been a great architect, but he would have been on the front cover of the gossip magazines because he created a scandal when he left his wife for the wife of one of his clients and then proceeded to travel around Europe with her. This kind of behavior almost destroyed his career, but his talent compensated for his lack of a moral compass, and he kept getting work. He built a home and studio for himself and his lover Mamah Cheney, Taliesin, but karma caught up with him. In 1914 an unhappy butler set fire to the house when Wright was working in Chicago and seven people were killed, including Mamah and two of her children.

Wright married twice more, but by 1928 he was deeply in debt. His last wife, Olgivanna proved to be an important partner in helping him get his life back together. She helped him create a school at Taliesin (which is still in existence today), and for $650 per year, architecture students could come live, study and assist Wright. It was one his student's parents that commissioned Fallingwater. This project restored his architectural reputation and led him back into the fame and fortune arena. It became his most famous residential project and to this day is a marvel in design and beauty. Not only did he establish a unique American school of architecture, he also left more than 400 buildings behind that he designed.

Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., the son of a successful department store owner in Pittsburgh, became a fellow at Taliesin, met Wright, and found they shared an interest in designing model communities. Their relationship led to the commission of this home on a plot of land that had been a summer camp for the employee's of Kaufmann's department store, Bear Run. Vacation time became a big luxury for the employees, and Kaufmann and his wife decided to build their own vacation home on the site. They told Wright they wanted their home to have a view of waterfall, but did not expect him to build the house into the falls! This was an extremely radical idea and the engineers he worked with thought he was nuts. But like many artists tied to their vision, Wright prevailed and the work proceeded. In the end, there were some structural problems with the design, but Fallingwater is a major tourist attraction for Pennsylvania and I for one want to see it!!

Interior of Fallingwater

One of the important factors of Prairie Style, and the reason for the open, horizontal design, is to incorporate the building into the landscape that surrounds it. Fallingwater is the ultimate example of this aesthetic goal. The house is built over a 30 foot waterfall, magically rising above the stone and water and it looks as though it is floating. This floating appearance is a result of the cantilevered blocks of concrete (supported only on one end). These cantilevered blocks also create a strong horizontal line in the design of the house. Vertical elements, chimneys and mullions (window dividers), are also worked into the design, and are built of local stone. The vertical line contrasts with the strong horizontal nature of the cantilevers, but using stone as the material keeps it visually connected to the surrounding stone of the landscape. Open spaces and glass keep it light and integrate the inside and outside spaces in a natural way. It is truly a beautiful and magical place.

Frank Lloyd Wright

10/11 Academic Decathlon The Great Depression Art Selection #11 - Hoover Dam

Hoover Dam, Gordon Kaufmann, Nevada-Arizona Border, Concrete, Commissioned by Bureau of Reclamation, 1931-36

Herbert Hoover commissioned this public work as the Secretary of Commerce under President Harding in 1922 and it was named after him. He had a background in civil engineering and with the help of the committee designed a dam that was unprecedented between Arizona and Nevada. It's job - to harness the power of the Colorado River and manage water resources for Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming! Woah!! This thing is massive!! The concept was massive as well - it is an anti-gravity concrete dam. DemiDec says, "It combines the structure of an arch dam, the open end of which faces downstream, with the massive heft of a gravity dam." When it was completed in 1936, it was for a bit the tallest dam in the world. And, check out the new Hoover Dam Bridge that was just completed - it's a new wonder of the world as well!!

Godon Kauffman (1888-1949) was an English architect who was asked to consult on the aesthetic look of the dam. The engineers had been really focused on the function of the structure, which wasn't looking too great. Kauffman redesigned the dam to incorporate the streamlined aspects of Art Deco design. No small feat because the dam rises 726.4 feet from the base from the highway to its crest. An additional 40 feet rise from the towers and the ornamentation. There were four main areas of the dam: the intake towers, dam crest, power plant and the spillways. The dam has a strong vertical line in the intake towers at the top (which are essential to powering the plant). The entire structure is massive, powerful but elegant and stately. It's purpose was to provide flood control and provide water for seven states as well as generate electricity. President Roosevelt held the dam up as a symbol of progress. It buoyed the public and people thought that if this massive project could be created, there was hope for the country to pull out of the economic crisis.

10/11 Academic Decathlon The Great Depression Art Selection #10 - Empire State Building

The Empire State Building, New York City, NY, 1931

The Empire State Building was created by the architectural firm of Shreve, Lamb and Harmon. They founded their firm in 1929 in New York. In spite of the Depression, commissions for skyscrapers were still flowing in and they were in demand; they had made a name for themselves developing Manhattan office buildings and designing the 10-story Reynolds Building in North Carolina. The Empire State Building's creation came to symbolize not only the city but the era.

Tallest buildings in the world

1,239 feet from the street (the pinnacle adds 203 feet), the Empire State Building dominates the Manhattan skyline. At one time it was named the Eighth Wonder of the World because it was so tall. It is the tallest building in New York City, and at the time it was built was the tallest building in the world. But man's desire to keep building higher and higher (ever read any history about Gothic Cathedrals?) was stronger and it lost that status. Currently, at 2717 ft tall, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates is the tallest building in the world.

As other skyscrapers of the time, it is supported by a steel frame with the exterior facade comprised of equal parts of stone and glass. The stone is a light gray Indiana limestone and granite with vertically oriented windows running the length of the building creating a vertical effect. The surface is broken with setbacks , kind of like smaller blocks are stacked one on top of another. This provides a slimming effect of the building as it rises higher and higher and cuts down on the visual weight of the structure. More light can move around it, keeping the building looking lighter as well as more light getting to the other buildings.

Unbelievably, the building was built in one year, forty-five days with the labor of lots and lots of men (up to 3,000 working at a given time, many of whom were immigrants). As was customary during this time, there was a photographer, Lewis Hine, that was present to document the process. He played two roles: document the work in progress and help shape public perception. Though immigrants had a back seat role in society at the time, Hines highlighted their participation in the building of this great structure.



For its inauguration, President Herbert Hoover pressed a button from the White House and hundreds of miles away, and the Empire State Building lit up. It was a strong symbol of the future and despite the financial crisis, proved that great things were still possible. It was a big building to fill, and for some time people called it "The Empty State Building", but by the late 1940s it became profitable. People now, as when it first opened, would ride to the observation deck and look out over New York, the city that never sleeps.

Portrait of Lewis Hine

10/11 Academic Decathlon The Great Depression Art Selection #9 - Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico

Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, Ansel Easton Adams, 1941, Gelatin silver print, 36.9 x 48 cm (14 1/2 x 19 in.), The Art Institute of Chicago

Who doesn't love the work of Ansel Adams!?! So vivid, beautiful, even though you know he is shooting a real scene, his work looks hyper-realistic because of the crisp clarity of his picture. It was his destiny - he fell in love with Virginia Best whose family owned a photography studio in Yosemite National Park. He had a unique opportunity to have access to equipment, a darkroom and an incredible area of the country that defined his aesthetic eye. He was a pioneer in the field of photography and preferred working with a camera that had large format film (8" x 10" negatives). One thing that makes his pictures so exceptional is the contrast (or difference between the light and dark areas of the image). He is able to get the whitest whites right alongside the darkest darks, which adds to the drama of his scenes. In order to control the contrast precisely, he developed a technique called the "zone system" which allows the photographer to adjust the level of exposure in different areas of the photograph. His love of precise photography led him to a group of seven California photographers that were dedicated to "straight photography" - they were called Group f/64, named after the smallest possible opening of the aperture of a cameral lens (the part that lets the light in). When the aperture is adjusted to this setting, it produces a picture that has very sharp focus, with the foreground and background equally crisp and sharp. Their mission was to shoot without manipulating the image using cropping or special effects.

This aesthetic had a contemporary ideology behind it. Just like the art and architecture of the time, "straight photography" was interested in simplicity, objectivity and realism. Adams was interested in photographing the glory of nature and hoped that his pictures of the national parks would spur politicians to protect them and keep them pristine. He also became a part of the nature preservationist organization, the Sierra Club, and later became the director. What a great pairing - he could use his pictures to promote the mission of the club. He worked with the Department of Interior in 1941, then was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to continue with his work of photographing the parks. It was through this continued work and exposure that Adams lifted photography from a journalism tool to the status of fine art. He has been one of the most famous photographers of all time.

Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico is a serene landscape with a huge sky. In painting, perspective is shown by blurring the background detail in order for it to recede into the back, but the mountains in this photo are crystal clear even though we know them to be far away. Adams perspective is flat and emphasizes the contrast between the light and dark that create abstract shapes in the landscape. In the foreground we see different buildings nestled around the few trees in the landscape. This moment captures the setting sun - you can see the crosses of the churchyard gleaming in a brilliant white as the moon rises over a bank of clouds.

Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941 print

Once the negative is developed, additional prints can be made. Because printing a photograph involves chemicals and light, many variations can be made to manipulate the image. Ironically, though Adams didn't want to manipulate the image in the original shooting of it, he was not opposed to manipulating subsequent prints of the negative. Adams developed several prints of Moonrise, and each print has a difference in contrast. Compare the photo at the top of the post with the one just above this text. This is one of the places the artistry of photography comes in. Playing with the contrast, Adams could change not only the appearance of the photo, but could also alter its mood. Color is a big element in visual media - removing the color to black, white and shades of gray allows the viewer to focus more on the composition and the subject of the photograph. It helps distill the image down to its very nature. Black and white photography has been very popular in fine art photography because of its simple and direct nature.

The circumstances surrounding Adams shooting this particular scene are described by the artist:

We were sailing southward along the highway not far from Espanola when I glanced to the left and saw an extraordinary situation - an inevitable photograph! I almost ditched the car and rushed to set up my 8x10 camera. I was yelling to my companions to bring me things from the car as I struggled to change components on my Cooke Triple-Convertible lens. I had a clear visualization of the image I wanted, but when the Wratten No. 15 (G) filter and the film holder were in place, I could not find my Weston exposure meter! The situation was desperate: the low sun was trailing the edge of the clouds in the west, and shadow would soon dim the white crosses. I was at a loss with the subject luminance values, and I confess I was thinking about bracketing several exposures, when I suddenly realized that I knew the luminance of the moon: 250 c/ft2.

The perfect photo required not only the correct equipment, but ultimately the eye of the artist seeing the image in the flash of a second. Nature's cycles do not wait, and photography is ultimately about capturing light on film. Adams, though he had been out working for the government that day, did not bill the government for the photograph. Somewhere in his mind his intuition was acute. This image would become one of his most famous and popular images and he was ultimately able to profit from it. He also had full rights of the image and could control how he developed and used each print.

I lived in New Mexico as a young girl in the early 1960s. This print captures the nostalgia of that special part of the country and supports the slogan still sported on the New Mexico automobile license plate - "Land of Enchantment".

Ansel Adams Self-portrait, 1936

10/11 Academic Decathlon The Great Depression Art Selection #8 -Contrasting No. 331 East 39th Street with Chrysler Building and Daily News Building

Contrasting No. 331 East 39th Street with Chrysler Building and Daily News Building, Manhattan, Berenice Abbott, November 8, 1938 Art Institute of Chicago

New building materials, steel, glass and chrome, in the 20th century led to the rise of many new skyscrapers. Steel was an incredible new material, and allowed for lighter walls which then allowed for glass to be utilized in new ways. Elevators became a more reliable technology and allowed for buildings to be built higher and higher. Architectural styles used in buildings that were built from World War I until the 1930s are known as "traditional", after that time they were considered to be "modern". These new materials created the modern aesthetic - one that was not only new but would also showcase these innovative materials. The Bauhaus was in full swing in Germany and one architect, Le Corbusier, was the champion of the International Style.

The cityscapes were changing rapidly; Bernice Abbott took note and set out to document the changes. She studied in Paris and was a darkroom assistant to Man Ray, a very famous portrait photographer and Dada and Surrealist artist. He trained her in his methods, and soon she was shooting for herself and mounting her own shows. Rather than take pictures of people, she decided to take portraits of the buildings that were appearing in the city. New York was one of the most dynamic places for new skyscrapers at the time, so that's where she settled down. She realized that her goals were in tandem with the WPA/FAP, and submitted a proposal to document the historical changes being made to the New York City skyline. He proposal was accepted.

Look at the building that is named only by its address - its windows are boarded up, posters cover the doors and windows on the street level. It appears to have been a residential building. It was unremarkable, except to Abbott it spoke of the problems during the Depression - evictions, people fleeing in search of a lucrative opportunity, an example of urban decay. The new buildings, the Chrysler Building at the far left and the Daily News Building to the very left of No. 331 East 39th, are beautiful, new, named and renowned within the city. This contrast between the old and new is not necessarily a political statement. Much like Walker Evans, she is merely capturing the image of the change and bringing it to the viewer's attention.
Bernice Abbott

10/11 Academic Decathlon The Great Depression Art Selection #7 - Migrant Mother

Migrant Mother, Nipoma, California, 1936, Dorothea Lange, printed later, Photogravure, 30.4 x 23 cm, The Art Institute of Chicago

OK - a little more background detail. FDR's New Deal programs are in place and at work. Among the tasks of the Resettlement Administration's mission was to provide loans to farmers, set up camps for migrant workers, work on soil conservation and reforestation programs, and document all of this work under the RA's Historical Section. Photography was a fairly new technology and was really efficient at documenting the problems of the Great Depression. Roy Stryker was appointed the head of the Historical Section of the FSA and was in charge of directing the imagery that would capture the story. His photographers, such as Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans, travelled around the country capturing the details of people as they moved through this extraordinary life situation. He was the consummate promoter in that he knew how to use the images in magazines and newspapers to show people what was going on across the country. This work of his produced an enormous body of documentary photographs of the Great Depression.

Dorothea Lange suffered polio at the age of seven, but survived the disease and went on to study photography in New York City. When she moved to San Francisco, she set up a successful portrait studio but eventually began to document life on the streets of San Francisco. It wasn't too much of a leap then to begin taking pictures for Roy Stryker who recruited her to the Historical Section in 1935. This began her work documenting migrant workers in California. Her work is some of the most compelling photography of the Great Depression, and this photograph, Migrant Mother, is iconic of the time.

Like Shahn's Riveter, Lange crops into the image tightly. The mother and her three children fill the frame. The composition is powerful - the mother's face is full of anxiety; she is deep in thought, her brow furrowed. She clings to her children as the cling to her. Their faces are turned away or only partially revealed. The are worn and dirty, gaunt and miserable. This image of a mother caring for her children in a world of misery is a universal one and produces a visceral response in the viewer. Here is her quote about taking this photograph:

"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 32. 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 bury 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."

That migrant mother was Florence Owens Thompson. Listen to an audio file of her talk about that time.

10/11 Academic Decathlon The Great Depression Art Selection #6 - Negro Barber Shop Interior, Atlanta

Negro Barber Shop Interior, Atlanta, Walker Evans, 1936, Gelatin silver print, 22.1 x 18.3 cm, The Art Institute of Chicago

Walker Evans worked through the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and toured the Southern United States for a year with Roy Stryker. We've seen artists so far that used their art to illustrate social injustice (Rivera, Shahn, Biddle), but Evans wanted his work to be "pure record, not propaganda...no POLITICS whatsoever." Stryker had an agenda for Walker to follow, but Evans was deliberate and careful about his shots. He was looking for images that would engage the viewer and make them think, without giving them a political agenda or viewpoint.

Evans broke from the FSA in 1936 to work with James Agee on a commissioned article about white sharecropper families in Alabama. They were on location for several weeks compiling the story and the images that were to accompany it. It was published as the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Walker's imagery was contemplative and objective and his style established a new way of supporting Agee's passionate text through illumination, not illustration. He was fired from the FSA in 1937 but "Evans had already established his fame as a documentary photographer. He had the honor of being the first solo photographer to have an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, and received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1940 that funded his projects." (Thanks DemiDec for your great art resource!!) He eventually became a staff photographer at Fortune magazine and worked there until 1965. He went on to become a professor of photography at Yale University until his death in 1975. He was one of the most important photographers of this time because he had a keen, unimpassioned eye and inspired other photojournalists to shoot without opinion or emotion.

This black and white photograph is full and empty at the same time. The scene is carefully constructed - chairs wait for customers, linen ready to be used, hairdressing tools at the ready. And yet, there are no people in the shot. People are not even reflected in the mirrors. One mirror reflects black emptiness, the other filled with an image of a full shop. The shop is in an old space - chipped paint on the back wall, worn leather chairs - there's a sense that it's been patched together to fit the space. The documentary style of Evans captures all of these details in a high degree because he used a large-format camera.

The barbershop is a communal and intimate space. Men are groomed here on a regular basis. Relationships are formed. Social discourse takes place - the are free to talk about life, work, sports, politics. During the 1930s segregation was in place and black men were required to frequent their own barbershop, not one that white men went to. Evans shows us that environment, without people and without judgment. He presents richly detailed images that are direct and interesting inviting the viewer to interpret what is happening. Check out more of his work from this major retrospective exhibit of his work that was held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

10/11 Academic Decathlon The Great Depression Art Selection #5 - Muse of Music, Dance, Drama

Muse of Music, Dance, DramaGeorge Stanley, 1940, granite, 22'H x 220'W, Hollywood Bowl Association

George Stanley was a sculpture and sculpture teacher at the Otis Arts Institute in Los Angeles. His public sculptures are local landmarks of the city. With all that public exposure, he is known for his role as co-designer of the gold statuette known as the Oscar. Stanley's fountain and sculpture Muse of Music, Dance, Drama is a fitting monument in the city that has become an icon in the culture of entertainment.


Muse of Music

It achieves its height by following the curve of a hill which acts as a retaining wall outside the amphitheater. The overall design is very geometric. Flat panes contrast with a curved central pier and water cascades down concentric tiers. It is against this structure that the three muses stand - clean, elegant and solemn, they embody not only the history of Music, Dance and Drama, but also the Art Deco style. The figure at the top of the fountain is the Muse of Music, playing a harp that echoes the shape of the central pillar. As in early Greek sculpture, her figure has little detail and her face little individuality.


Greek Kore


Muse of Dance

The muses of Dance and Drama are in niches on either side of this main sculpture. Dance has a bent knee referencing the important contribution the Greeks made to sculpture, the contrapposto pose.


Kritios Boy

And Drama holds a tragedy mask in front of her face and a comedy mask across her chest alluding to the unpredictability of theater (and life!) - one minute you're down, the next minute you're up, especially in Hollywood! The style of Art Deco is known as an anonymous aesthetic because you do not see the individual style of the artist. The Hollywood Bowl is still a major venue for music, dance and drama performances. The city of Los Angeles and the Hollywood Bowl Association commissioned the work and collaborated with the WPA to fund it. The city is caring for this treasure and in 2006 made a restoration of the monument by repairing the fountain, the lighting system and replacing tiles. With such a location and tradition, the muses must look fabulous, dahling!


Muse of Drama

10/11 Academic Decathlon The Great Depression Art Selection #4 - The Riveter

The Riveter (mural study, Bronx, New York central postal station), 1938, Ben Shahn, tempera on paperboard, image: 33 x 14 3/4 in. (83.8 x 37.5 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum

Here's another connection with Diego Rivera! It was a small art world during the Great Depression! Ben Shahn (1898-1969) was a can do kind of artist - he cleaned paint brushes for Rivera when he painted the Rockefeller Center mural, took pictures for the FSA in California and painted his own murals in a government-sponsored model community in New Jersey. He came from a Jewish Eastern European immigrant family and through perseverance made his way to Brooklyn. His main style of art is social realism, a style that featured the hard life of the working poor and criticized the social structure that causes such problems. His first major work, The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti was spawned by Shan's sympathetic leanings for the defendants as a liberal immigrant himself.

His career included not only working with Rivera, but also with Walker Evans, a well known photographer that taught Shahn about working with cameras. When he was not awarded some mural proposals, Evans recommended Shahn to another government agency, the Resettlement Administration. Traveling through the South and Midwest with his love and companion, Bernarda Bryson, he documented the life he saw, but photography was not to be the medium of choice for Shahn. Photography was a study for his paintings. He continued getting commissions, including a mural at the Bronx Central Postal Station.

The Riveter was a study using tempera on paperboard for the "Resources for America" mural cycle at the Bronx Central Postal Station. The compelling composition uses the vertical space to box the workman into a compressed space. You can think of it as though you had put a photo into Photoshop and cropped tightly down on the subject. This compressed scene focuses on one worker. The environment he is in, which you see little of because of this close up study, seems to be a factory. There is a lot of ambiguity to the painting - what city is he in, what kind of factory is this, what is he working on? By keeping the details vague, this one workman symbolizes factories and workers all across America doing the same type of work. The face of the worker is not complete enough for clear identification. Even the color palette of coveralls and skin color blend together so you're not sure what ethnicity he is from. The white gloves provide a focal point with a red power cord leading from the machine. It looks like an artery not only in color but in the placement of the composition and serves as a symbol for industry being the heart of the American economy.

Shahn won this commission out of 189 submissions. Perhaps because his composition combines the universal with the realistic and his ability to represent such an important aspect of American life - industry. It represented every man and was easy for any viewer to understand. During this time of the Great Depression, his painting did not focus on the unemploymed, but the employed by putting the worker on a pedestal and making him the heart of American industry.

10/11 Academic Decathlon The Great Depression Art Selection #3 - Tenement, Mural Study

Tenement (mural study, Depart of Justice Building, Washington, D. C.), 1935, George Biddle, tempera on fiberboard, 40 1/2 x 31 1/2 in. (102.9 x 80.0 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum

George Biddle (1885-1973) was born into a wealthy family who expected him to become highly educated and establish a law career. He got a law degree, but traveled to Paris (the art capital of the world at that time) and enrolled in a famous art school, the Academie Julian. After serving in WWI, Biddle began his art career. On a trip to Mexico in 1928, he met Diego Rivera. They proved to be valuable networking friends, each recommending the other for work in each other's countries. Franklind D. Roosevelt was a former classmate of Biddle. George wrote him a letter, and was able to get his ear about painting murals in the Department of Justice. He got the commission and dedicated the rest of his life to public art. In the first mural of a five-panel series Biddle did for the federal government, he contrasted just and unjust societies. The final panel, Tenement, depicted the private lives of poor Americans. This art thrust the struggles of America's poor right in the face of the government.

Tenement is a single wall that's divided into three areas. His cut-away view of the inside of the apartment building shows immigrants and poor families going about their daily lives. The left section is a vertical section showing the outside of the building with bars on the windows and laundry hanging to dry. Utility poles lean left and right suggesting disorder in this urban environment. An old woman is in the foreground of this section and holds an axe and some firewood. This figure and it's placement tie into the figures on the right side of the composition that are inside the building. He compositionally connects both inside and outside with these figures. The people inside are working, playing or taking care of their family, but all have dull, unemotional expressions. It's as though they are just going through the motions of daily life.

The crowding, barred windows, and forlorn expressions suggest their homes are just lonely prisons for them. They are tired but enslaved to the poverty they endure day to day. By placing this mural in the Department of Justice, Biddle hopes to show the people that are making decisions some of the people they affect. "He underscores this point by including two quotes in the mural. At the bottom of the right-hand field, Biddle paints a plaque reading: “brandeis: if we would guide by the light of reason we must let our minds be bold”. The quote is from Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis (1856–1941). It joins another quote that appears at the beginning of the five-panel series, “The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience,” attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841–1935), who had just retired from the Supreme Court in 1932." (Quote from the DemiDec Art Resource Guide - thanks DemiDec for what you do for Academic Decathlon!!)

The first quote is imploring the viewer not to turn away from the hard images of poverty. And the second quote grounds in the subject matter that Biddle has chosen. He is challenging the notion of just law and visually states that it is not enough to have the law of Justice. Justice must also mean helping all by improving the lives of people in their society. Pretty in your face, huh? And all under the wing of a public art vehicle. He radically changed the course of Depression-era art.

George Biddle at work on his mural Society Freed through Justice in the U.S. Department of Justice Building., Washington, D.C., 1936

10/11 Academic Decathlon The Great Depression Art Selection #2 - Aspects of Negro Life: Song of the Towers

Aaron Douglas. Aspects of Negro Life: Song of the Towers. Mural series comprised of four panels: Song of the Towers, From Slavery Through Reconstruction, An Idyll of the Deep South, and The Negro in an African Setting. Oil on canvas, 1934.
The New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Art and Artifacts Division.

I have a special connection to this work. When I went back to college (at the age of 47!) to finish my bachelor's and become certified to teach art, I had the privilege of taking some Art History classes (which I went on to teach and love with a passion). The last class I took was an African American Art class, taught by Dr. Jennifer Way at the University of North Texas. The reading list was long. The course had a sizable focus on the Harlem Renaissance which I knew NOTHING about! How was that possible? Such a fantastic flowering of artistic expression born in the United States, and I had never even heard about it. Dr. Way gave us a challenge - go to our comprehensive art history textbooks and search for African American art in them. Nada. Nothing - or next to nothing. The tome of Art History (unnamed but easily guessed at), out of over 1,000 pages of art history, had two paragraphs about the Harlem Renaissance and a pitiful representation of modern and contemporary African American artists. I was appalled and it left a lasting impression for me. This period of artistic expression should be taught and celebrated! Aaron Douglas' work excites me so because of not only the formal qualities of his paintings, but the modern expression, the passion and the soul of the African American that he depicts. I just love his work.

The Harlem Renaissance was an incredible explosion of intellectual and artistic talent between 1910-1940 in Harlem, New York. The neighborhood was largely black, impacted by the Great Migration in which over one million and a half African Americans left rural areas across the U.S. to find work and new opportunity in urban centers like New York City. The new demographics spawned a search for new expressions of black cultural identity from their African heritage and ancestry. The artists of this time were looking for ways to come to terms with the duality of their African roots and their American birth rite. Sadly, the Depression hit the movement hard in the 1930s and it withered, but it spawned incredible talent: writers W.E.B. DuBois and Alan Locke, poets Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen, visual artists Aaron Douglas and Jacob Lawrence, and jazz musicians Billie Holiday, Count Basie and Charlie Parker.



Douglas was born in Topeka, Kansas, studied art at the University of Nebraska and taught art in Kansas City. He went to Harlem in 1925 and started working as an illustrator for books for Cullen and Hughes as well as African American magazines Crisis and Opportunity. His work was critically acclaimed and eventually he was commissioned to paint a four-panel series for a branch of the New York Public Library - Aspects of Negro Life.

Song of the Towers is the last panel and the only one that has an urban context. The central figure is playing a saxophone (symbolic of the jazz movement) in the midst of the New York City skyline. The emotion displayed is not clear, is could be celebratory or defiant. Far in the distance is the Statue of Liberty, an icon of freedom, in the center of concentric circles that radiate out in the composition. The figures are in silhouette against the jutting, rectilinear buildings thrusting skyward. This style of portraying the men in this abstracted way became known as "Egyptian form" style because they are shown in profile. The lower part of the painting show men with industrial imagery - cogs and smokestacks. The figures are tense and struggling juxtaposed with the central figure which speaks of equality for African Americans in this new time and place. The colors are warm and throbbing. This is not a calm image. There is visual tension with the use of the complimentary colors of red and green. The green is not the color associated with growth, but has an ominous feel.

Aspects of Negro Life depicts the development of African American culture from the village in Africa, through the crisis of slavery and racial oppression, ending in the glimpse of the Harlem Renaissance in the Song of the Towers. The series has visual unity compositionally, repeating the elements of the silhouette, concentric circles and bold color. The power of the silhouette is its ability to represent a group without individuality, making it more powerful visually. This celebration of the African culture was an important step to illuminate the accomplishments of African Americans, though it would be decades before they would begin to gain rights and freedoms and not be treated as second-class citizens. This modern imagery was important as a sign of progress for men and women who had much to give to America.

Aspects of Negro Life: The Negro in an African Setting

Aspects of Negro Life: Idyll of the Deep South

Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery to Reconstruction