Part 1 of a series
Greenbelt’s construction and the early years of life in the community were well documented by photographers employed by the federal government’s Resettlement Administration (RA) and the Farm Security Administration (FSA), which succeeded it. The Greenbelt photos are part of the FSA/Office of War Information (OWI) Photograph Collection, which documented American life between 1935 and 1944. After World War II, this photo collection was transferred to the Library of Congress for cataloguing and preservation; digital versions of the photos are available online at loc.gov/pictures. A search for “Greenbelt Maryland” yields 1572 results, including some more recent, color photos.
The documentary photo project was launched and headed by Roy Stryker, who was a colleague at Columbia University of Rexford Tugwell who, as head of the RA, oversaw the planning and construction of Greenbelt. Stryker initially hired 11 photographers, including Carl Mydans, Arthur Rothstein, Marion Post Wolcott, John Vachon and Russell Lee, all of whom took photos in Greenbelt. Another photographer of Greenbelt, Marjory Collins, was hired later, when the FSA photo unit had been shifted to the OWI. All six became well-known for their photojournalism and had varied and interesting careers.
This reporter was inspired to learn more about these photographers by the exhibition, The New Woman Behind the Camera, which is on view at the National Gallery of Art through January 30. The Greenbelt work of many of these photographers can be seen in the halls of the Community Center.
Carl Mydans
Carl Mydans had worked as a reporter for the Boston Globe and Boston Herald before going to Washington to work for the RA in 1935. He took dozens of photos in Greenbelt when the new town was being constructed. During that same time period, Mydans also traveled throughout New England and the southern U.S., documenting the conditions of American workers during the Great Depression.
In 1936, Mydans joined Life magazine as one of its earliest staff photographers and worked for Life until it folded in 1972. He traveled extensively during World War II, photographing life and death throughout Europe and Asia. Mydans and his wife were captured in the Philippines by the invading Japanese forces and held for nearly a year in Manila and for another year in Shanghai, China, before being released in a prisoner-of-war exchange in December 1943. Surprisingly, Mydans was then sent back to Europe to cover battles in France and Italy and he went back to the Philippines to cover General Douglas MacArthur’s famous return in 1945. He also photographed the signing of Japan’s surrender aboard the USS Missouri. After the war, Mydans and his wife headed Time-Life’s Tokyo bureau for a few years and covered the Korean War. He died in 2004 at age 97.
Arthur Rothstein
Arthur Rothstein had been a student of Stryker at Columbia University and was hired by him to set up the darkroom for the Photo Unit when it was part of the RA. He was the first photographer sent out by Stryker to photograph rural and small-town America. One of his first assignments was to photograph farm families that were displaced when Shenandoah National Park was created. Rothstein also took photos of families and conditions in the Dust Bowl, cattle ranches in Montana and Black tenant families in Gee’s Bend, Alabama. Most of his Greenbelt photos were taken after construction was finished and while the new residents were settling in. Noteworthy are Rothstein’s photos taken in January 1938 of the buildings around town and in April 1939 of children in the school (now the Community Center).
Rothstein became a staff photographer for Look magazine in 1940 but left to become a photographer in the Army Signal Corps, where he covered the China-Burma-India theatre. He remained in China following his discharge from the Army in 1945, working as chief photographer for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. He rejoined Look as director of photography in 1947 and worked for the magazine until it ceased publication in 1971. He then joined Parade magazine, working there until his death in 1985 at age 70.
Marion Post Wolcott
Marion Post Wolcott took over 250 photos of Greenbelt scenes and people in September 1938 and the summer of 1939. She trained as a teacher but then went to Europe to join her sister who was studying with Viennese photographer Trude Fleischmann. Fleischmann saw some of Marion’s photos and encouraged her to get serious about photography. The Post sisters returned to the U.S. after witnessing Nazi attacks on Vienna’s Jewish population and Marion became involved in the anti-fascist movement while continuing her photography. A colleague at the New York Photo League showed Stryker a portfolio of Marion’s photos and Stryker immediately hired her as an FSA photographer, where she explored the political aspects of poverty and deprivation. She resigned from FSA in 1942, shortly after her marriage, and then focused on raising a family.
She became active again in photography in the 1970s, when scholars got interested in her work. Her photos have been collected by major museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian. One of her photos is included in the exhibition The New Woman Behind the Camera, currently on view at the National Gallery of Art.
Sources
The information in this article was drawn from the Library of Congress website (loc.gov) and from Wikipedia and other webpages about each of these photographers. Interested readers are encouraged to explore the photos by these and other FSA/OWI photographers in the Library of Congress digital photo collection.