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You haven't seen their faces: eugenic national housekeeping and documentary photography in 1930s America

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journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-21, 06:02 authored by Sue Currell
This essay explores the relationship between welfare, eugenics and documentary photography during the New Deal in order to explain how a set of government photographs taken by Arthur Rothstein in the Shenandoah became entwined in the rhetorical structure of eugenic ideology. The photographs discussed portray victims of forced sterilization before their incarceration, yet there is no evidence to show that the photographer was aware of, or complicit with, this fact. This essay responds to the questions this raises about the images: what historical and social contingencies were behind their production? What is the relationship between the photographer, the photographs, the New Deal and the subjects depicted? How did efforts to help America's poorest lead to their incarceration and sterilization? Why is the full picture impossible to see? And how do we read and understand them today?

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Accepted version

Journal

Journal of American Studies

ISSN

0021-8758

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Issue

2

Volume

51

Page range

481-511

Department affiliated with

  • English Publications

Research groups affiliated with

  • Sussex Centre for American Studies Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2017-03-31

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2017-06-21

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2017-04-25

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