Adam Mardis
ENG 191
Doolen
4 February 13
After looking through John Vachon’s
photos it is hard to really pick out a theme that shines through in all of the
images. Knowing that the pictures were all taken during the era of the Great
Depression, a number of them showed people experiencing the effects of America’s
devastating recession. The photo I chose
depicts African Americans in the Public Works Administration (PWA) outside of
their housing. Not only were the times hard for everyone, but the 1930’s was
hardly a time of Civil Rights. This only makes me wonder how hard it was for
African Americans to find a job during this period.
After further analysis of the
photo, I came up with some ideas. The first and most obvious assumption I made
was that this was a family- maybe a father with his two daughters. According to
the information given on the website (and as stated before), they are outside
of PWA housing. The Public Work Administration was a program that was instated
to give low income jobs to those without income. From this, we can infer that they are clearly
experiencing the hard times as well. Not
only that, but when you look at the daughters’ face, you do not see faces of
optimism. The one on the left appears to be crying. The father, in the middle,
gives a stone cold glance at the photographer. The housing behind them appears
to be a place that provides just the basics for living; it’s small and bland.
Even the plants in the small garden in the front of the house give off an feeling of sadness as they all appear to be
withering or already dead.
Out of all the photos, this is one
of the few that truly displayed the effects of the Great Depression.
I agree I think that the presentation ran well and it was easy to distribute the work evenly amongst us all. We had an easy time talking and sharing ideas making it easier for us to learn more about the photographer and his photographs. Our main focus was on his photographs from Omaha and it was difficult for us to narrow it down. As far as presenting the material I think it went will but everyone is still getting to know each other. It was a simple project and it will make it easier to work together the rest of the semester on the more challenging ones.
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