Arthur Rothstein Iowa 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.
Reviewing Rural Electrification Administration plans at the Central Iowa 4-H Club fair, Marshalltown, Iowa, 1939. Photo by Arthur Rothstein. Courtesy of Arthur Rothstein Legacy Project.
Today the “digital divide” limits opportunities for poor families.
In 1935 President Roosevelt created the Rural Electrification Administration to bridge an “electrical divide” that left 90% of farm households burdened by their lack of access to centrally generated power.
After overcoming many initial hurdles, an aggressive program of technical and financial innovation made the REA one of the most popular and successful New Deal efforts.
By 1943 it had loaned almost 500 million dollars (equivalent to about 9 billion dollars in 2020) to local governments and electric cooperatives that extended power lines serving millions.
Rural families enthusiastically connected to the expanding grid to reduce the burdens of physical labor and pierce the darkness with lighting that replaced dangerous kerosene lamps.
The first household appliance purchases were typically a light-weight electric iron, and a radio that delivered news, entertainment, weather forecasts and farm commodity reports to formerly isolated people.
“The night the lights came on” was a momentous anniversary for generations of farm families, ranking in importance with births and marriages.
Grinding coffee in general store, Lamoille, Iowa, 1939. Photo by Arthur Rothstein. Courtesy of Arthur Rothstein Legacy Project.
During Arthur Rothstein’s countless cross-country assignments, he often stopped at a location for just a day, or even for just a few minutes. He focused for several weeks on the New Deal
Farm Security Administration programs of central Iowa, the results of government grants, loans, and debt relief that helped many farm and ranch families survive the Great
Depression.
He also documented the businesses, churches, town squares, and general stores where rural people gathered with their neighbors.
In Lamoille, northeast of Des Moines, he found this industrial-strength coffee grinder with its powerful motor, and flywheels labeled “Fairbanks Morse & Company Chicago.”
Thaddeus Fairbanks founded the company iron works in 1823 to manufacture his patented stoves and plows.
By 1910, Fairbanks Morse was the best-known company in the world (prior to Ford Motor) and its 800-page catalog offered goods serving farm, factory, and industry.
The fortunes of companies like Fairbanks were revived by enormous New Deal infrastructure projects, and by America’s mobilization for WWII.
This Arthur Rothstein exhibit is made possible by the Arthur Rothstein Legacy Project.