Arthur Rothstein New Mexico Photograph
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.
Apache children, Mescalero Reservation, New Mexico, 1936. Photo by Arthur Rothstein. Courtesy of Arthur Rothstein Legacy Project.
In April, 1936, Arthur Rothstein was sent to document life on the Mescalero Apache Reservation in south-central New Mexico, and on the Taos Pueblo Reservation in the northern part of the state.
Sociologist John Collier, Sr. had studied the history of the Pueblo tribes in Taos, New Mexico in the 1920s and later advocated strenuously a new approach to US Government relations with Native Peoples.
In 1926, Congress responded by authorizing a comprehensive study that identified desperate conditions on tribal lands.
This became known as “The Meriam Report,” which spurred demands for reform.
In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Collier to head the Bureau of Indian Affairs where he promoted passage of the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act that implemented many recommendations of the Miriam Report.
The Act, also referred to as the “Indian New Deal,” had mixed results but did end many destructive government policies.
It also funded employment, health, and educational projects for Native Americans and improved opportunities for tribal self-government in New Mexico and elsewhere.
This Arthur Rothstein exhibit is made possible by the Arthur Rothstein Legacy Project.