New photography by Shannon Ruff captured with a digital camera-2007.

Farmers Unloading Their Tobacco from their Trailer in the Baskets the Night Before Auction Sale in Hughes Warehouse, Danville, Virginia, October 1940

Artist Marion Post Wolcott (American, 1910 - 1990)

CultureAmerican

Date1940

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsOverall, Image: 7 × 9 7/16 in. (17.8 × 24 cm)
Overall: 8 × 10 in. (20.3 × 25.4 cm)
Overall, Mat: 16 × 20 in. (40.6 × 50.8 cm)

Credit LinePurchase, Horace W. Goldsmith Fund

Object number84.78.81

On View

Not on view

DescriptionThis is one of a series of 132 FSA photographs of Virginia; all are gelatin silver prints.

Label TextMarion Post Wolcott American, 1910–1990 top A Truckload of Tobacco Going to Warehouse in South Boston, Halifax County, Virginia. There Are Eleven Warehouses in this Small Town, November 1939, 1939 Gelatin silver print (photograph) bottom Farmers Unloading Their Tobacco from their Trailer in the Baskets the Night Before Auction Sale in Hughes Warehouse, Danville, Virginia, October 1940, 1940 Gelatin silver print (photograph) Between 1938 and 1942, Marion Post Wolcott took more than 9,000 photographs in rural areas of the American South and Midwest for the Farm Security Administration, a federal agency created to fight poverty. By documenting the daily lives of the poor and working class, these images attached names, faces, and stories to the Great Depression, justifying President Franklin Roosevelt’s economic assistance programs. Previously Wolcott had struggled to find work in the male-dominated world of photojournalism. These commissions gave her opportunities to exercise her artistic voice and explore her particular interest in race relations. Museum purchases, Horace W. Goldsmith Fund 84.78.79 and 84.78.81, respectively ProvenancePurchased prints from Library of Congress (negatives on file at Library of Congress,) 1984.Exhibition History"Mountaineers to Main Streets: The Old Dominion as seen through the Farm Security Administration Photographs," Large Changing Gallery, Chrysler Museum of Art, May 3 - June 16, 1985. Published ReferencesBrooks Johnson. _Mountaineers to Main Streets: The Old Dominion as seen through the Farm Security Administration Photographs_. The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, VA. 1985: pp. 68-69; ill. p. 68.