Arthur Rothstein: Capturing the Great Depression

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Arthur Rothstein was a photographer from New York, NY. He was born in 1915 and raised in the Bronx with his immigrant parents. During his time of being a student at Columbia University, he found out about the University Camera Club. In this club he met Roy Stryker who was a professor hired by Franklin Roosevelt under the visionary Farm Security Administration. Roy Stryker enrolled Arthur as the first real photographer of the FSA (Farm Security Administration). In the next 5 years after he is given this title, Arthur spends his time shooting some of the most iconic images from the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Rothstein took around 80,000 pictures. These pictures were to show the full impact of what the Great Depression and The Dust Bowl …show more content…

Soon after working there, World War 2 broke out so he left to join the United States Office of War Information and then the United States Army Signal Corp in India and China. After his time in China, he came back to Look magazine until they ceased in 1971. Arthur was apart of the staff at many universities and helped a good many of younger photographers such as Stanley Kubrick, Charlotte Brooks, Doug Kirkland, Chester Higgins Jr, and John Shearer. Arthur made an impact on his life here being a photographer by leaving his mark everywhere he traveled, and by being one of the most iconic photographers. His photos left a message about the time period he chose to photograph. He understood what these people went through in their hard times of life and the fact that he got to know them before he just started snapping pictures of them shows a lot about himself. Arthur’s photos proved a point just by looking at them. The pain people had to go through during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl is something no one should ever have to go through again. Even though most people who view his photos are not from his time, we are able to see just from his photos what it would have been like to live there. During his career, he published nine books on photography including textbooks on photojournalism and documentary

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