Arthur Rothstein Montana Photographs
Arthur Rothstein made some of the most significant documentary photographs ever taken of rural and small-town America.
These images were created during his years traveling throughout the nation on assignment for the US Farm Security Administration, one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” agencies that restored and rebuilt an America devastated by the Great Depression.
In 1940, Rothstein joined the staff of Look magazine.
With the start of the WWll, Rothstein completed photojournalistic assignments for the US Army Signal Corps in China, Burma, and India.
After a short assignment for the United Nations, he returned to Look magazine, where he served as director of photography for 25 years during the Golden Age of post-war photo magazines.
He then held the same position for Parade magazine for 15 years, until his death in 1985.
During his years in magazine photojournalism Rothstein continued his own work, teaching, writing nine books as well as numerous newspaper and magazine columns on photography.
His photographs of America during the Great Depression were some of the most widely-published photographs of the 20th century, and are held in the collections of major museums around the world.
Cowboy’s boot and spur. Quarter Circle U Ranch Big Horn County, Montana, 1939. Photo by Arthur Rothstein. Courtesy of Arthur Rothstein Legacy Project.
Cattle ranching has long been central to Montana’s history and economy.
The Great Depression accompanied by a 10-year long drought pitched Montana’s economy into a downward spiral. Beef prices collapsed.
Roosevelt’s New Deal did not end the Great Depression, but it kept many Montanans fed and employed through the toughest years.
Arthur Rothstein documented life in Montana during the hard times in 1936 and again in 1939, after the decade-long drought ended.
Thinning rows of sugar beets, Treasure County, Montana, 1939. Photo by Arthur Rothstein. Courtesy of Arthur Rothstein Legacy Project.
This man is an essential worker—one among the millions of Mexican and Mexican American agricultural workers who have toiled to feed the nation.
One oppressive labor practice imposed by many farms until the late 20th century was the short-handled hoe.
The implement is familiar to home gardeners, but when mandated for long days of stoop-labor—because field bosses felt that it made supervising workers easier—the result could be chronic pain and long-
term damage to young workers whose bodies had not fully developed.
After decades of bitter protest, mandatory use of the tool—that workers referred to as el cortito (the short one), or el brazo del diablo (the devil’s arm)—was finally reduced by laws and hard-fought union contracts.
It had become such a potent symbol of unionization victories by Cesar Chavez of the United Farm Workers, that at his funeral in 1993, Chavez’s grandchildren placed a short-handled hoe on the altar.
This Arthur Rothstein exhibit is made possible by the Arthur Rothstein Legacy Project.