Arthur Rothstein and the photograph as construct.

In May 1936, under the direction of Roy Stryker and the Farm Security Administration (FSA), Arthur Rothstein received a commission to travel to North Dakota to photograph the social consequences of the economic depression. Upon his travels to Pennington County, in the southwest corner of the state, Rothstein came upon a scene of a steer’s skull, camouflaged amongst “a parched alkali flat.” (James Curtis, Minds Eye, Minds Truth, 71). As James Curtis explains in his book Minds Eye, Minds Truth, “this composition… conformed to Resettlement Administration instructions that whenever possible, photographs should include evidence of land misuse and mismanagement… no matter how dramatic or artistic, a picture of abandoned land was not nearly so powerful as one that communicated how farmers or ranchers were continuing to eke out an existence on what the agency termed sub-marginal soil.” (71). Initially taking some shots of the skull in its original place, Rothstein moves the skull around a total of 5 times, trying various arrangements for added dramatic intensity. Moving it next to a cactus with sparse forage, the various arrangements are suggestive of “overgrazing [that] created an environment no amount of ingenuity could make productive.” (71).

The photographs received excellent response from Stryker, who urged Rothstein to take more photographs of a similar nature, claiming “we will now probably have the finest collection of drought photographs in the United States when you finish this trip.” (Stryker to Rothstein, June 6, 1936, RSC). Yet the response from the media as well as the general public was quite different. When the Fargo Evening Forum heard of the manipulated character of the images, they “charged the Resettlement Administration with photographic fakery and fabricating drought conditions.” (Curtis, 75). This was followed by harsh criticism from the Republican Party who used the photographs to attack the credibility of the Democratic administration. “The Democrats,” argues one source “were using photographs to make environmental conditions look worse than they actually were in order to pass controversial legislation through Congress.”[1]

Perhaps the most famous of Rothstein’s various photographic series is from another excursion to Cimarron County, Oklahoma in April of 1936. A recent surge in sandstorms, of which “more than a hundred struck the Panhandle in 1935 and 1936,“ (Curtis, 81), combined with the financial stranglehold that had resulted from the depression, made it increasingly difficult for farmers of the area to reap sufficient produce. Farm machinery often suffered severe damages during the treacherous sandstorms. One photograph taken by Rothstein depicts a broken plow half-buried in sand, entitled “The Plow that Broke the Plains: Look at It Now.” (Minds Eye, 78).

Yet one photograph in particular, Fleeing a Dust Storm, captures the audiences concern. As Rothstein recalls of the set, “while making my pictures I could hardly breathe… the land and the sky seemed to merge and there was no horizon… just as I was about to stop shooting I saw the farmer and his two sons walk across the fields.”[1] The image depicts a farmer with his two sons, who appear to be running across the sand, with the younger son trailing slightly behind, his hands shielding his eyes from the onslaught of sand and dust.

However, further research into the photo reveals an involvement on the behalf of the photographer that goes beyond the act of mere observation. Before taking the famous shot, Rothstein took a number of portraits of the farmer and his children. In the background the horizon is quite clear, and the prominent shadows the figures produce indicate a sunny day. Yet as Curtis explains, “a true dust storm… often turned day into night and slammed into buildings at more than sixty miles an hour, temporarily blinding those caught outside.” He continues, stating, “photography under such conditions was impossible save to record the billowing black clouds that warned of the approach of a true duster.” (81). The Republican party’s disapproval of such actions was mirrored by the expediency with which they were able to criticize the Rothstein controversy. In a 1942 essay, Rothstein eventually admits to his involvement in constructing the scene, claiming that “the little boy was asked to drop back and hold his hand over his eyes. The father was asked to lean forward as he walked.”[2]

The photographs of the Resettlement Administration (RA) and Office of War Information (OWI) photographers, like the stirring speech of an emotive public speaker, were imbued with political agenda. The boy was instructed to trail slightly behind the rest of his family, in order to create the impression, as Curtis notes, that “the storm is destroying family unity.” (84). Even though one may argue that the welfare government these photographs were attempting to create sympathy for was something that America needed at this time, the means by which Rothstein went about to achieve the end largely discredited the means, especially in the eyes of public. It was these falsifications that eventually led to a withdrawal of funding from the RA and FSA, with media outlets of the time such as the Detroit Free publishing headlines such as “Another Fake Traced to Doctor Tugwell’s Propagandists.”[3] Although Republicans were unable to turn propaganda into a solid campaign issue, the RA was “quietly transferred” to the Department of agriculture, and was renamed the Farm Security Administration (FSA).

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[1] Quoted in James Curtis, Mind’s Eye, Mind’s Truth, pg. 81.

[2] Quoted from Rothstein’s essay “Direction in Picture Story,” in James Curtis’s Mind’s Eyes, Mind’s Truth, pg. 84.

[3] Quoted in James Curtis, Mind’s Eye, Mind’s Truth, pg. 76.

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[1] http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/faking.html