'Families were devastated': looking back on the Great Depression via art

In 1937, Margaret Bourke-White photographed an advertisement that read: “World’s highest standard of living: There’s no way like the American way.”

It was seen in Louisville, shortly after a flooding in Ohio River valley. A group of African Americans lined up outside, waiting for emergency relief from a government station. Bourke-White, who showed how strenuous the depression was in the 1930s, is featured in a new group exhibit that details how America coped in dire political and economic times.

Opening 21 September at the Art Institute of Chicago, Photography + Folk Art: Looking for America in the 1930s features more than 130 artworks and artefacts that look at the country during the Great Depression.

“Bourke-White was a master of the impact photo,” said Elizabeth Siegel, who co-curated the exhibit alongside Elizabeth McGoey. “You have this image of a white family in a car and its up against a line of African Americans waiting for government relief. She set the stage for what the depression looked like and its ironies.”

With fears of a looming recession, it’s an apt time to look back at the past for our potential penny-pinching future. How did Americans deal with the depression? These stories from the past act as a sort of guide, from sluggish sales to job cuts and downright skimping and scraping.

“This work is from almost 100 years ago, but there’s relevant lessons for today,” said Siegel. “We hope visitors will come to this show and understand the historical moment and how to reflect on it today.”

In the five-room exhibit, the photos by Walker Evans show the spartan homes of coal miners in West Virginia, which had beds, tables and not much else. Photographer Dorothea Lange details the painful poverty and starvation many experienced, as she captured impoverished Americans waiting for food in a time when there wasn’t much to go around.

There are also photos by Russell Lee, who shot the simple farm life, and Arthur Rothstein, who photographed schoolchildren in a rural school in Alabama who had access to a blackboard (and not much else).

With today’s excessive consumerism, it’s a chilling journey. These vintage photos, too, are shown alongside folk art, some of which includes furniture, hand-stitched wool rugs, jugs made of maple wood, armchairs carved from ash and a 1920s quilt made of cotton.

“During times of upheaval, there’s an interest in locating our natural traditions,” said McGoey. “Folk art represented a shared communal past and artistic tradition that had yet to be celebrated in the hierarchical spheres in the art canon. Photography and folk art were barking at the door of high art, for sure. This is a story of how the canon expands to absorb the margins.”

There’s also art showing how people enjoyed their lives without the glut of unnecessary spending, like Berenice Abbott’s photos of small business owners and smiling Americans as they peruse the streets of Pennsylvania. They’re accompanied by audio clips of folk songs such as Skip James’s Hard Time Killin’ Floor Blues and the Boswell Sisters’ Shine on Harvest Moon.

Things were especially difficult for those outside of major cities. “Life was quite bitter,” said Siegel. “The photos showed the plight of everyday Americans, particularly on farms. At the height of the depression, there was a 25% unemployment rate and many families were devastated.”

In 1936, Evans focused on a series of photos in Alabama, showing the lives of farmworkers, including his famed portrait of Allie Mae Burroughs, the wife of a farmer, who he photographed leaning against her family’s cabin.

“He liked the unvarnished quality, the lines on her face, which started looking like the line of the wood behind her, she is humble,” said Siegel. “It became a classic portrait of what someone looked like at the height of the depression.”

The exhibit opens with a sculpture of an American eagle by John Haley Bellamy, which was made from gold leaf-painted pine. It signals a time when the country pulled together to suffer through difficult times.

“Many of these objects popular in the 1930s were celebrating nationalism,” said McGoey. “We’re looking at nationalism in that period and are asking questions about what constitutes an American aesthetic, we’re also inviting visitors to consider what they see of America in this art, who is depicted here from America?

“Through the symbol of the eagle and nationalism, it’s an invite for critique, how far we have come, and how far we still need to go.”