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| Photo by BLADEN FINCH This is an example of the photography in the “Picturing Faith” exhibit that was featured in the Hofheimer Library. |
Black and white glossy photographs of America's past, of a time that seems distant and lost. A mother's piercing eyes, a congregation worshiping together, churches standing tall, offering hope, crucifixes on bedroom walls, pictures of Jesus and the Virgin Mary in the living room, children studying and worshiping in church.
This is the "Picturing Faith: Religious America in Government Photography, 1935-1943" exhibit in the Hofheimer Library sponsored by the Center for the study of Religious Freedom and the Art department. The collection that was put together by curator Colleen McDannell of the University of Utah as the Material History of American Religion Project, is now it is touring the country, stopping at colleges and universities. The exhibit is also funded by the Lilly Foundation.
"I was interested in it for the light the exhibit sheds both on how religion was perceived and how it was ‘used' during that period," said Dr. Catherine Cookson of the Center for the study of Religious Freedom. "Religion has iconic power, and is used for many purposes by government - both then and now."
The photographs were taken by the Farm Security Administration (FSA), which was set up by the government to help rural Americans in a time period in which one out of every four American workers was unemployed. The photographs were used to "dramatically show why people needed help and how the FSA was providing it." They also served as wartime propaganda to show that religions can and do live together peacefully. And all the photographs are accompanied by explanatory plaques to allow viewers to fully digest what they see.
The exhibit takes the more religious of those FSA photographs to visually show "the place of religion in American society" in this time period. Many of the photographers shown in the exhibit are well known like Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans. These photographers shot pictures of the exterior of church buildings of all different religions, pictures of individuals praying and reading scripture, and pictures of religious groups and couples.
The FSA believed that they could show "intense private and interior nature of prayer by focusing on one individual." An example of this is John Collier Jr.'s "House of Juan Lopez," which shows an old man sitting in a room, head bent and a crucifix on the wall. Some FSA photographers thought that by excluding people from their photographs and restricting them to churches, they were creating art and making the photographs more universal. This can be seen in Walker Evans's "Episcopal Church," which shows the quiet, stillness of an empty church.
Russell Lee's photograph of Lucy Smith, an African American woman who established All Nations Pentecostal church, also graces the wall of the exhibit, along with a photograph of crutches from all the people she had healed. These photographs capture an African American woman contributing to her society.
Delano photographed Bar Mitzvah-aged boys studying under a photograph of an 18th century rabbi in "Hebrew School." These boys represent the future for their religion as well as "the purity of religion." Poverty and religion seem to go hand and hand in this era. The poor kept pictures, statues and crucifixes in their homes as an expression of their faith and a reminder that there is meaning in the world. Fenno Jacobs offers a picture of such a family enjoying dinner with a crucifix over the kitchen table in "Mealtime," expressing a family's loyalty to religion in times of difficulty.
All the photographs seem to show a division in race and religion. The one exception is Wolcott's "Where Shall Ye Spend Eternity," which catches two men, one African American and the white, interacting on the roadside beside a sign the photograph is named for. This collection provides proof that, in hard times, many people depend on their religious beliefs. Even those who are not religious can get a sense of history from the faces, congregations and lone buildings captured in time in black and white photographs.
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| Photo by BLADEN FINCH These and other photos were on display in the Hofheimer Library that caught the eye of anyone passing by. |
The photographs were displayed in four panels or themes: Religion and Photography; Poverty and Religion; Celebrating America's Communal Spirit; and Faith without People. The first theme, Religion and Photography, addresses the issue of the different techniques that the photographers used to depict religious life at the time of the Depression. One of the most evocative pictures on display is that of only a woman and her children.
The photographer, Dorothea Lange, titled it "Migrant Mother," and it won her a great deal of critical acclaim. It is obvious why this piece is so celebrated. Lange describes the composition of the picture and how she went about getting it: "I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. She told me her age, that she was 32. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that her children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean-to tent, with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it" (From: Popular Photography, Feb. 1960).
"Migrant Mother" was only one of many photographs that seemed to transport you to that period of sadness and poverty. But somehow many of the victims of the Depression found a way to praise, worship and continue their religious traditions. Marion Post Wolcott's "Members of the Primitive Baptist Church in Morehead, Kentucky, attending baptizing by submission " is a photograph about the continuation of religious practices during troubled times. Through the camera's lens we can see 40 or 50 people gathered on a muddy bank looking out approximately 6 feet, where two preachers are standing in waist-high muddy water with two parishioners. The picture invites you to think about the place religion and community takes in the lives of people with little material wealth.
There were many other poignant images in the collection. Mary Post Wolcott captured the devotion, spirit and poverty of a French-mulatto family in Louisiana without having any of the family in the photograph. The focus of Wolcott's piece, which was placed in the panel on "Poverty and Religion,” is a mud wall covered almost entirely with tattered pictures of Jesus, Mary, and many saints. Pieces of palm and dead flowers are stuck on the wall as well. In the bottom right hand of the photograph is the left side of a rusty iron bed.
Not all of the pieces were visions of a culture grasping for hope in a time when hope was scarce. Some of the photographs showed how many Americans came together to rejoice in each other's fellowship and celebrate life no matter how difficult it may have been. In the section "Celebrating America's Communal Spirit," there are 19 photographs depicting communities and families during happy occasions. An example is one of a family of six, with heads bowed and hands clasped, sitting around a sparse but neat table of food. The picture was taken in 1941 by Jack Delano and it is titled, aptly, “Smith family saying grace at the afternoon meal” (Carroll County Georgia). Another example of good times during the advent of World War II is one in which the title is sufficient to describe the photograph.
"Some of the members of the Pentecostal church with crutches and canes deposited in the church by those who have been healed by the church” (Lee, Russell. Chicago, Illinois. 1941.). The pictures in the panel "Celebrating America's Communal Spirit" probably did more for America's morale than for support of New Deal projects but the end result was the same – a more unified nation to support each other, the nations leaders, and the nations objectives.
It was obvious after viewing the 45 pictures in the exhibit that religion played a major role in the lives of American’s during the 1930’s and 1940’s. If it were not for the spirit of the American people it would have been a difficult task to motivate people to do much of anything including supporting new programs, a new war and a renewed sense of hope in the future. The purpose of the Farm Security Administration was to use the photographs to speak to the nation and they spoke volumes.
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