Mule Skinner and his 20-Mule Team. Wheat Combine in Walla Walla County, WA

Russell Lee, American, 1903 - 1986

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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

Art History 48.02, Histories of Photography, Katie Hornstein, Spring 2024

Anthropology 73.01, Main Currents in Anthropology, Sienna Craig, Spring 2024

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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