Arthur Rothstein Kansas 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.
Wives of Farm Labor Union members, Galena (Cherokee County), Kansas, 1936. Photo by Arthur Rothstein. Courtesy of Arthur Rothstein Legacy Project.
Francis Perkins, President Roosevelt’s Secretary of Labor, was the first woman appointed to the U.S. cabinet.
She championed the Wagner Act, which gave workers the right to organize unions and bargain collectively; the Fair Labor Standards Act, which established the first minimum wage and a shorter work week, and the Social Security Act of 1935 (with its three major components: retirement benefits, survivors’ benefits, and disability insurance).
The labor movement has played a central role in the advancement of women’s rights, and has set standards for wages, working conditions, and quality of life for all workers.
The election year of 1936 was a lively period for union and labor organizing in Kansas.
In November, the Republican Governor of Kansas, Alf Landon, was defeated in the Franklin Roosevelt landslide victory.
Farmer Dean of Franklin County, Kansas, 1936. Photo by Arthur Rothstein. Courtesy of Arthur Rothstein Legacy Project.
The 1930s was a decade of drought and dust storms. Drought killed the wheat crop.
The year 1935 is generally considered the worst, as far as dust blowing was concerned.
In 1936 the drought area expanded to include most of the states between the Appalachians and the Rockies.
During the next four years the blowing area gradually receded.
Some 750,000 American farms were lost between 1930 and 1935 through bankruptcy and their farms.
Individuals and the state’s economy suffered. Farmers and grange organizations foreclosure.
Crop prices dropped so low that many farmers went bankrupt and lost.
One of implored Congress to pass relief legislation in order to save farmers from bankruptcy.
the many programs instituted under President Roosevelt’s New Deal, the National Recovery Administration, included a program to help under-financed farmers with good backgrounds to
get them started again.
This Arthur Rothstein exhibit is made possible by the Arthur Rothstein Legacy Project.