The Role of FSA during the Dust Bowl

The bleached skull of a steer on the dry sun-baked earth of the South Dakota Badlands by Arthur Rothstein

The bleached skull of a steer on the dry sun-baked earth of the South Dakota Badlands by Arthur Rothstein was taken in May 1936.  Looking at the photograph you get a sense of desolation and despair.  It feels like you are in a desert and can feel the baroness of the land.  The sense of hopelessness that the people are suffering can be felt just looking at the photograph.  In reading the caption of the photograph we find out this is not a desert, but South Dakota, one of the most fertile lands in the US.  Knowing that it adds an even greater sense of the struggles that the people are going through.  The livelihood of the people of South Dakota is tied to the land and when you see it dry as the bone sitting on top of it, we can start to understand the difficulties those residents must have faced. 

When the photograph was taken, Rothstein was working for the Resettlement Administration (RS) which later became the Farm Security Administration (FSA).  “The Photo Unit of the Historical Section of the Resettlement Administration was created by [Roy] Stryker to use photography to document and publicize the large-scale economic dislocations caused by the Great Depression and the widespread displacement and disruption of agricultural communities during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s” (FSA Years, November 10, 2012).  This mission statement can clearly be seen in the photograph above.

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The powerful emotions that were invoked by the photograph, makes us want to act, to lend a helping hand.  It accomplished its goal by showing the nation what the Dust Bowl was like and how it has impacted the residents of South Dakota and through inference all breadbasket states.  However when examining the other photographs in the series you don’t get the same visceral experience.  There is a different story that is being told.  The varying point of view of the steer skull that was taken does not depict the same desperate desolation as the original published photograph.  You can see some grass throughout the land and even cows grazing nearby.  It still conveys a sense that there is a problem as evident by the dry earth in the foreground, but not as extreme as the original photograph portrays.  When looking through the series, it becomes clear that the steer skull was moved.  It makes us question whether this is still a documentary photograph when the main focus of the image has been moved?  Many newspapers after seeing the complete series started to call the photograph a fake. 

To provide some background as to why this photograph became so controversial we need to examine the events that occurred during 1936.  The Dust Bowl spanned over a majority of the 30’s and one of the worse dust storms occurred in 1936.  In addition the country was in a middle of the Great Depression.  As for the cherry on top, the photograph was taken and published in the newspapers during a presidential election year.  Franklin Delano Roosevelt was running for re-election and during his first term he had passed an unfavorable economic program called the New Deal.  These were some of the major factors that came together to cause the controversy around the photograph. 

Roosevelt wanted to document the progress being made with the New Deal.  The images taken by the FSA were to be used to show current conditions of the US and how the President’s plans were improving the lives its citizens and developing the country.  All was going according to plan when newspapers started to call out the authenticity of the photographs.  There were many people that were oppose to the New Deal programs they either did not like the idea of big government stepping over the rights of the state and its citizens or they did not like how much money was being spent on the programs.  The photograph taken by Rothstein became an easy target when it was discovered that the steer skull was moved.   It became a political tool to paint a picture of waste and fraud that the Roosevelt administration had pulled over America.  If it were not an election year, would the photograph have gotten so much attention?  It is uncertain, what it did do was to shine a light into Plato’s cave (Sontag, 2001).  It helped illuminate the condition of the US to citizens across the nation.  And thanks to the newspapers people were provided with multiple viewpoints which hopefully gave them an opportunity to make a decision of their own.

A point was made that the steer skull image is not a documentary photograph.  In a sense it is correct because the skull was moved from its original location.  However because it was moved it made it a much more dramatic photograph.  Rothstein claimed that it was moved only ten feet and looking at the wider angle photographs it seems plausible.  The skull was not moved that far from its original location, but in doing so it helped people get a look at the conditions of that part of the country and share in the feelings of the people living there.  The arguments about the photograph seemingly became one about semantics.  Would it have been less contended if we called it an editorial photograph instead of the documentary photograph?  Or would it not have mattered since it would have been used as a political tool regardless.

An interesting argument comes up because of this case.  Is it possible that there is no such thing as a documentary photograph, since by the mere act of observing a system, we end up changing it and in essence become a part of what we are observing.  This idea leads us to a larger problem.  How do we educate people to understand that photographs are not conclusive evidence?  It is in fact a point of view of the person taking the image.  To be good citizens we must educated ourselves, question everything we hear, see, and read not just take it for face value. 

The photograph taken by Rothstein changed the views and opinions of the people of the 30s.  It showed the conditions of a part of the country and invoked feelings within the viewer.  Does it matter if the photograph is an exact true life representation if it accomplishes the goal you set out?  There are agendas and biases when people create photographs.  The only problem that arises is when people try to pass photographs as absolute truths or people think that photographs are the truth.  Rothstein didn’t try to pass his image off as the absolute truth.  The caption is as objective as one can be, leaving only what the viewers see in the image as the basis to form their own conclusions.  Photographs are instead is an interpretation of reality.  The steer skull brought up powerful emotions, it helped people understand and feel the plight of those living in the Dust Bowl, because of the skill of the photographer wanting to share his vision with others.

References

Arthur Rothstein Archive, "FSA Years." Last modified November 10, 2012. http://arthurrothsteinarchive.com/fsa-years.html.

Library Of Congress, "FSA/OWI B&W Photographs." Last modified 2009. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsahtml/fahome.html. 

 Library Of Congress, "FSA-OWI: New Deal Web Guide (Virtual Programs & Services, Library of Congress)." Last modified 2011. http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/newdeal/fsa.html.

Sontag, Susan. "On Photography." New York, New York: Picador USA, 2001.