American Gothic

1050 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Essay fashion industry

I had done some fashion work in St. Paul and I had principally gone to Chicago to shoot fashion, but I found myself doing more and more work on the south side, the poverty stricken areas where the blacks lived. That is what got me a Rosenwald Fellowship, the first one ever given in photography. At the time, Jack Delano was in Chicago and he encouraged me to come to the Farm Security Administration. I wanted to work at the FSA because they were doing what I wanted to do ; exposing poverty in America- and along with poverty I wanted to expose racism in America, so I sort of fit right into the grove. Roy Stryker [head of FSA] didn’t want to take me on at first because of the racism that was in Washington in 1942. The whole laboratory was from the south and Roy felt that I was going to have a hard time. But the Julius Rosenwald people encourage him and told him that I had to take care of myself. When FSA broke up, I was the only photographer on the staff that the lab gave a party for. Evidently, they liked what I’d done. I broke down racism through hard work. “The people who were suffering were the important ones, and I a sense, we were just sent to listen to what they had to say, what they wanted to show us. It was our problem to get their message out to the world.” “I more or less directed my camera toward poverty and racism in Washington, D.C. I did a lot of picture s of black people and I followed a charwoman around. By just being with her I was able to enter all areas of the community to see black people at their jobs and the inhumanity they suffered. And that’s what I was doing there – the preparation for my future work.” pages 14-16 Harlem “I arrived in Washington in 1942 to work alongside the very best documentary photographers – a goal that had kept haunting me after I saw their pictures of those impoverished migrant workers. Four years had gone by since then. I knew very little about Washington, other than that beneath its gleaming monuments and gravestones lay men with famous gleaming monuments and gravelstones lay men with famous names in American history. Sensing my ignorance, Stryker sent me out to get acquainted with the rituals of the nation’s capital.

Show More
Related

  • The Face Of Americ Roy Stryker And The FSA/OWI Photographers

    1015 Words  | 3 Pages

    From the film, “Documenting the Face of America: Roy Stryker and the FSA/OWI Photographers”, we, the viewer, are able to gain an understanding about all that the photographers witnessed and how they handled each of the situations they saw. Arthur Rothstein, Dorothea Lange, Ben Shahn, Carl Mydans, Edwin and Louise Rosskam, Gordon Parks, Jack Delano, John Vachon, Marion Post Wolcott, Esther Bubly, Russell Lee, John Collier Jr., Edwin Locke, and Walker Evans are the famous photographers that are discussed in this particular documentary. Almost all of the things that photographers witnessed while working on this project were things that people who lived in the city would never have seen unless they have visited or were originally from the country.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Sister Souljah's The Coldest Winter Ever

    1094 Words  | 3 Pages

    To the urban lifestyle of growing up in the ghettos and the hardships. She depicts the usages of drugs, gang, crime, poverty, teen pregnancy and mostly how it effects the community. But also shows how the outside violence comes into the home and can devastate the natural order of the household.

    Read More

  • Maya Angelou

    955 Words  | 2 Pages

    This piece of autobiographical works is one of the greatest pieces of literature and will continue to inspire young and old black Americans to this day be cause of her hard and racially tense background is what produced an eloquent piece of work that feels at times more fiction than non fiction

    Read More

  • The Morally Ambiguity In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

    1901 Words  | 4 Pages

    “I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”

    Read More

  • Observations in All Our Kin

    1290 Words  | 3 Pages

    Carol Stack finds herself in a curious place as a young white woman venturing into a black neighborhood in hopes of alleviating negative stereotypes and bringing illumination into a semiosphere that is altogether ignored or even despised. While she defined her purpose as the attempt to “illustrate the collective adaptations to poverty of men, women, and children within the social-cultural network of the black urban family” (28), her methods are not merely those of an outside observer spouting back information, but truly that of an actively engaged participant. Staying true to the guidelines of participant observation studies, Stack did not attempt to isolate or manipulate the culture she saw, and instead of donning the lab coat, as it were, and playing the role of the experimenting scientist, or simply sneaking in, Stack was very human in her interactions and dealings, participating as actively as possible in peoples’ real lives in The Flats. (Hedrick).

    Read More

  • Grant Wood’s "American Gothic"

    1418 Words  | 3 Pages

    Grant Wood’s American Gothic is one of the most famous paintings in the history of American art. The painting brought Wood almost instant fame after being exhibited for the first time at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1930. It is probably the most reproduced and parodied works of art, and has become a staple within American pop-culture. The portrait of what appears to be a couple, standing solemnly in front of their mid-western home seems to be a simplistic representation of rural America. As simple as it sounds, when looking deeper into this image, it reveals something much more complex.

    Read More

  • Passed On Death And Loss Sparknotes

    1391 Words  | 3 Pages

    She uses narrative, photographs, and images to summon a painful history of lynchings, white rage and riot, medical malpractice and neglect, executions, and neighborhood violence. Her research uncovered how people in the past had specialized caskets sold to African Americans, formal burial photos of infants, and deathbed stories, and she unveiled a glimpse...

    Read More

  • What Are The Elements Of Southern Gothic Literature

    1294 Words  | 3 Pages

    Elements of Southern Gothic Literature Literature comes in all types of styles and one type is Southern Gothic. But what makes a story develop into this type of Southern Gothic style? There are many characteristics that are apparent in literature, so what conditions are distinct that would give them the term Southern Gothic literature? What kind of elements do we call for when trying to find this type of literature? Southern Gothic is a literature that has a style all its own.

    Read More

  • Southern Gothic Literature

    947 Words  | 2 Pages

    Southern Gothic Literature is a subgenre of Gothic fiction writing, which takes place in the American South. The Southern Gothic style is one of that employs the topics such as death, bizarre, violent, madness, and supernatural. These tools are used “to explore social issues and reveal the cultural character of the American South (Wikipedia).” The view of the South which is self-identified as the “national” or “American” view is basically a colonial Romance, with the rest of the nation identified with the forces of the light and the South with the forces of the darkness (Wacker 107).The authors of Southern Gothic typically use damaged characters to make their stories better, and to show deeper meanings of unpleasant Southern characteristics. These characters are diverse from society due to social, physical or mental disabilities. However, not all characteristics of the characters are bad; it is that a mixture of good and bad is found in most of the characters. Two authors who express the Southern Gothic writing style are William Faulkner, who wrote “A Rose for Emily,” and Flanner O Conner, the author of “Good Country People” and “A Good Man is Hard to Find.”

    Read More

  • The Gothic Period

    1342 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Gothic Period in the twelfth century influenced the creation of Gothic Revival Architecture in the nineteenth century. Gothic architecture began in France in 1140. Some of the first buildings made using this style are the Basilica of Saint Denis and the Cathedral of Sens. (Gothic Architecture By Paul Frank) This style of architecture started losing popularity in the early sixteenth century, but did not die out completely during this time period. Gothic architecture was still predominantly in cathedrals and churches. The rise of Romanticism began in the eighteenth century–leading to an awareness and increased interest of the Middle Ages, specifically interest in church architecture. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_Revival_architecture) Thus, Gothic Revival Architecture was created. When admirers of neo-Gothic styles wanted to revive medieval Gothic architecture, Gothic Revival Architecture was created—along with many sub styles, such as Polychrome Brick Gothic and Carpenter Gothic in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

    Read More

  • Jacob Riis How The Other Half Lives Analysis

    1114 Words  | 3 Pages

    The author states that he was fortunate enough to have found the perfect job as a reporter which started his success as an advocate by documenting against the tenement conditions and way of life of the discriminated population. The author said that in his personal opinion “The words he wrote never matched the power of the photos he took beginning in 1888” there was contradictions in words and pictures. .the pictures incorporated in his many articles and books illuminated the context and “helped fuel investigative journalism and the Progressive movement in the early 1900s.” Burgan states that Riis work has an everlasting power worldwide and he admires him as a

    Read More

  • Gothic Horror Story

    789 Words  | 2 Pages

    I peered around through the rain, desperately searching for some shelter, I was drowning out here. The trouble was, I wasn’t in the best part of town, and in fact it was more than a little dodgy. I know this is my home turf but even I had to be careful. At least I seemed to be the only one out here on such an awful night. The rain was so powerfully loud I couldn’t hear should anyone try and creep up on me. I also couldn’t see very far with the rain so heavy and of course there were no street lights, they’d been broken long ago. The one place I knew I could safely enter was the church, so I dashed.

    Read More

  • Protecting Families of Domestic Abuse and Disabilities

    1516 Words  | 4 Pages

    There are several populations that interest me however possible preferences include families that deal with domestic abuse and those who are disabled. Working with families that have experienced domestic violence is an interest because in the past I had friends whose family was dealing domestic violence and the impact could clearly in all members of the family. Seeing the difference that was made by those who worked to help their family made this population a preference. Another population that is a possible preference is are those who are disabled. The interest to help those who were disabled started when a faculty called Edelweiss opened. Up to that point there had been no interaction with those who lead different lives than myself. Through the year that was spent volunteering the changes in those that had lessons became obvious. Being able to see the achievements of those who had lessons made it a continued interest. In the past couple of years a new side of this interest was shown. There is someone that is a close friend who is disabled because of seizures who has had trouble with employers. Seeing how she has been treated made it even clearer that this population needs help and has made it a continued interest professionally and personally.

    Read More

  • Explain Why I Choose Social Work Profession

    230 Words  | 1 Pages

    The main reason I chose the social work profession, manifested early within my stages of childhood. The importance of giving to and caring for those in need, were deeply embedded in my very soul. Being reared by my grandmother, a nurse and by my teenage mother, a psychology student, I was exposed constantly to acts of kindness and generosity. As a result to my empathetic personality, I was welcomed into many social and ethnic groups, not commonly open to a young gay black male. In these younger years with the assistance of my parents, my love for others allowed me to help other teenagers in crisis, often providing shelter, advice, monetary assistance and a listening

    Read More

  • Richard Wright's 12 Million Black Voices: Photo and Text

    1906 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...ey for African-Americans. 12 Million Black Voices could not have depicted it better. Their unhappiness, shown on their faces in the photo, their weariness, fear, hopes, and highlights talked of in the text worked together to give us a look into the African-American life then. Today, our lives are better. African-Americans’ lives are better. We have more opportunity and more equality. What we do not have, we fight for. Yet we still see the traces of the past sufferings of our people’s lives today. We still see those traces of racism they were subjected to being repeated in our kin’s lives. And so the struggle continues, but with time it gets better. And this is the new hope. That one day racism will not exist and that no other will suffer like they did.

    Read More

More about American Gothic

Open Document