Mule Skinner and his 20-Mule Team. Wheat Combine in Walla Walla County, WA
Russell Lee, American, 1903 - 1986
July 1941
Gelatin silver print
Image: 10 1/4 × 13 9/16 in. (26 × 34.4 cm)
Sheet: 11 3/16 × 14 in. (28.4 × 35.6 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through the Julia L. Whittier Fund, the Phyllis and Bertram Geller 1937 Memorial Fund, and gifts from William Olden and Carola B. and H. G. Terwilliger, by exchange
2017.48.1
Geography
Place Made: United States, North America
Period
20th century
Object Name
Photograph
Research Area
Photograph
Not on view
Inscriptions
Stamped, on reverse, top center edge, in blue ink: PROPIEDAD / F. GAMBOA; Stamped, on reverse, center, in black ink: FARM SECURITY ADMINISTRATION / Photo By [inscribed, in red pencil: LEE] / Date [inscribed, in red pencil: JULY 1941] Neg. No. [inscribed, in red pencil: 39819-D]
Label
As manufacturing soared in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the United States underwent a dramatic period of urbanization. Yet the ideals of rural life—the honesty of labor, providing for one’s family—remained hallmarks of a dominant American cultural identity. George Tice conjured a subtly anachronistic rural idyll in this photograph of an Amish farmstead emerging through the early morning fog, depicting a way of life seemingly unchanged during the social turbulence of the 1960s.
Similarly, in Russell Lee’s photograph taken for the Farm Security Administration in 1941, a muleskinner, or driver, smiles as he sits in the wooden seat of a combine, leading his team across the endless expanse of wheat fields. Lee’s photograph strikes a notably upbeat tone, reinforcing a positive image of American life as World War II raged in Europe.
From the 2022 exhibition This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, curated by Jami C. Powell, Curator of Indigenous Art; Barbara J. MacAdam, former Jonathan L. Cohen Curator of American Art; Thomas H. Price, former Curatorial Assistant; Morgan E. Freeman, former DAMLI Native American Art Fellow; and Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art
Course History
ANTH 7.05, Animals and Humans, Laura Ogden, Winter 2022
GEOG 31.01, Postcolonial Geographies, Erin Collins, Winter 2022
ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022
ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022
ARTH 5.01, Introduction to Contemporary Art, Mary Coffey and Chad Elias, Winter 2022
ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022
ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022
SPAN 65.15, Wonderstruck: Archives and the Production of Knowledge in an Unequal World, Silvia Spitta and Barbara Goebel, Summer 2022
Exhibition History
This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 5–April 11, 2022.
Provenance
Farm Security Administration sold to Fernando Gamboa (1909-1990), Mexico, early 1940s; to his daughter (the Fernando Gamboa Foundation); to Charles Isaacs Photography, Inc, New York, New York; sold to present collection, 2017.
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