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Image scanned from a transparency and color-corrected by Pat Cagney.
Home of Postmaster Brown, Old Rag, Virginia, Shenandoah National Park Area
Image scanned from a transparency and color-corrected by Pat Cagney.
Image scanned from a transparency and color-corrected by Pat Cagney.

Home of Postmaster Brown, Old Rag, Virginia, Shenandoah National Park Area

Artist Arthur Rothstein (American, 1915-1985)
DateOctober 1935
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsOverall, Image: 7 5/16 × 9 5/8 in. (18.6 × 24.4 cm)
Overall, Support: 8 1/16 × 10 in. (20.5 × 25.4 cm)
Overall, Mat: 16 × 20 in. (40.6 × 50.8 cm)
ClassificationsPhotography
Credit LineMuseum purchase, Horace W. Goldsmith Endowment and Art Purchase Funds
Object number93.31.1
Terms
  • Interior
  • Postmaster Brown
  • Man
  • Documentary photography
  • Virginia
On View
Not on view
DescriptionThis is an FSA vintage print; it was printed at about the time the negative was made. It is unmounted. This photograph was taken of Postmaster Brown in his home at Old Rag, VA. It is from a series that Rothstein made of the people who were being dislocated by the creation of the Shenandoah National Park

Label TextArthur Rothstein American (1915-1985) Home of Postmaster Brown, Old Rag, Virginia, Shenandoah National Park Area, October 1935 Gelatin silver print Purchase, Horace W. Goldsmith and Art Purchase Fund 93.31.1 One of more than 200,000, this photograph was made under the auspices of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal by an agency known as the Farm Security Administration (FSA). The purpose of the program was to make photographs of how bad conditions were in the country, especially in the rural areas. Then, after the government programs, photographs were made to show how much the living conditions of the citizens had improved. In other words, these images were made purely for reasons of propaganda. Although the images could have been simply a bureaucratic exercise, thanks to the director of the project, Roy Stryker, it developed into a document of American culture during the Great Depression. In addition to Arthur Rothstein, Stryker had the foresight to hire such talented photographers as Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Ben Shahn, among others. Upon the demise of the project in 1943, the negatives were archived at the Library of Congress. Rothstein made this photograph while on his first assignment for the FSA. It is from a series of photographs Rothstein made of people who were being relocated because of the establishment of the Shenandoah National Park. In 1985, the Chrysler Museum organized a major exhibition and published a catalogue of 160 FSA photographs made in Virginia. Entitled Mountaineers to Main Streets: The Old Dominion as Seen Through the Farm Security Administration Photographs, the exhibition circulated throughout the state under the TEAMS program of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. All 160 of those photographs were acquired by the Chrysler for its collection. With two exceptions, the photographs were all modern prints made by the Library of Congress. This print, acquired later, is a vintage print, which means that it was made at about the same time that the negative was made. It is among 33 of Rothstein's photographs in the Chrysler collection. Edited By: GLY Edited Date: 11/07/2003
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