Podcasts about Farm Security Administration

I dagens avsnitt berättar vi om Dorothea Langes ikoniska fotografi “Migrant Mother” från 1936. Modern i det berömda fotografiet har blivit den stora depressionens (1929-1939) ansikte. Men vad är det egentligen vi ser i fotografiet? Det finns två olika versioner av historien, den ena av fotografen Dorothea Lange och den andra av den avbildade kvinnan Florence Thompson och hennes barn.Dorothea Lange var en av många fotografer som arbetade för Farm Security Administration, kort FSA, en statlig organisation som skapade en omfattande bildsamling över det amerikanska samhället mellan 1935 och 1944. Lange berättade om det gigantiska migrantläger hon hittade i Nipomo, Kalifornien, där 2500-3000 personer hade slagit upp tillfälliga hem för att få arbete inom ärtskörden som hade utlovats i tidningsannonser. Men på grund av det exceptionellt kalla vädret och vårstormar hade ärtskörden frusit sönder och det fanns inga arbeten för de desperata och utsatta människorna, som nu var strandsatta på det leriga fältet. I fältanteckningarna som Lange lämnade in tillsammans med de sex fotografierna som hon tog av familjen beskriver hon: "Sju hungriga barn. Fadern är infödd i Kalifornien. Utblottade i ärtplockarläger ... på grund av den misslyckade ärtskörden. Dessa människor hade precis sålt sina däck för att köpa mat." Men denna berättelse dementerades av modern Florence Thompson, när hon valde att träda fram 1978, efter att Lange hade gått bort. Florence Thompson berättade om sitt Cherokee-ursprung och att hon inte alls hörde till de stora skarorna av migranter som hade lämnat Oklahoma för att söka sin lycka i Kalifornien. Denna marsdag 1936 hade bilens kylare gått sönder och barnen hade tagit den till närmaste stad för att få den reparerad, medan hon och de andra barnen väntade. Lange hade också skickat bilderna till redaktören för San Francisco News, där några av fotografierna trycktes redan några dagar efter hennes besök i lägret, under rubriken: "Ragged, Hungry, Broke, Harvest Workers Live in Squalor.", vilket gick emot det hon hade lovat Thompson. Långt senare skulle många FSA-fotografer kritiseras och anklagas för att de hade riktat sina linser mot "perfekta offer" som de, delvis arrangerat, visade i sina fotografier. Ändå måste FSA-fotografernas viktiga roll för statens hjälpinsatser poängteras. Langes bilder på Florence Thompson och hennes barn fick omedelbar uppmärksamhet av Resettlement Administration i Washington och 9000 kg mat skickades till ärtplockarlägret i Nipomo.Support till showen http://supporter.acast.com/konsthistoriepodden. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the midst of the Great Depression, punished by crippling drought and deepening poverty, hundreds of thousands of families left the Great Plains and the Southwest to look for work in California's rich agricultural valleys. In response to the scene of destitute white families living in filthy shelters built of cardboard, twigs, and refuse, reform-minded New Deal officials built a series of camps to provide them with shelter and community.Today's guest is Jonathan Ebel, author of “From Dust They Came: Government Camps and the Religion of Reform in New Deal California.” We look at the religious dynamics in and around migratory farm labor camps in agricultural California established and operated by the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration. Ebel makes the case that the camps served as mission sites for the conversion of migrants to more modern ways of living and believing. Though the ideas of virtuous citizenship put forward by the camp administrators were framed as secular, they rested on a foundation of Protestantism. At the same time, many of the migrants were themselves conservative or charismatic Protestants who had other ideas for how their religion intended them to be.By looking at the camps as missionary spaces, Ebel shows that this New Deal program was animated both by humanitarian concern and by the belief that these poor, white migrants and their religious practices were unfit for life in a modernized, secular world.

Carleton College senior Esme Krohn loves the Perlman Teaching Museum on campus, and she was at the opening night of its new exhibit “Towards a Warm Embrace” by Finnegan Shannon and Ezra Benus. The hands-on, interactive exhibit explores themes of ableism and disability as well as the power of touch in a post-pandemic world. Both artists are New York-based, though Shannon is a Carlton grad, and some of the pieces were created in collaboration with Carlton art students. One such piece that Krohn particularly liked consists of a series of heating pads with original cyanotype prints for covers. The heating pads are in a room with warm lighting, creating a space where she could imagine chilling with friends. Many pieces invite visitors to touch them, and there are numerous places to sit, including a bench whose label says, “This exhibit has made me stand for too long.”  The show runs through April 14. The Perlman Teaching Museum is free and open to visitors. It's located inside the Weitz Center for Creativity on the Carlton College campus in Northfield.  There will be an event connected to the exhibit on Jan. 19, Convocation with Jerron Herman.Sarah Larsson is a Minneapolis-based singer and an organizer of next weekend's Klezmer on Ice. This Friday evening, she's looking forward to Abinnet Berhanu's Ahndenet at Icehouse in Minneapolis. Ahndenet means “unity,” and this performance will combine music from both the East and West African diaspora. Ethiopian drummer and composer Abinnet Berhanu of Minneapolis brings his deep knowledge of Ethiopian and American jazz and pop, featuring the talents of local Ethiopian vocalist Genet Abate. They share the stage with Kevin Washington, who incorporates Afro-Latino, hip hop and R&B beats along with West African diaspora rhythms and jazz. “One thing that I think is really interesting about Abinnet and his music,” says Larsson, is that “he talks a lot about how there are so, so many different styles and traditions of music that come from Ethiopia, but kind of what people tend to hear is only one very kind of sterilized and also almost Americanized style of pop music. And he's been doing a lot of work for many years to go down into the roots and study these very specific different lineages. He names the teachers and the singers of the songs. And what he's trying to do is illuminate and bring together these different styles, by actually naming them and where they come from.” Artist Brian Sago teaches photography and printmaking at Blake School, and he often includes the photography of Gordon Parks (1912 – 2006) in his classes. Sago was excited to see a collection of Parks' photodocumentary work at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Parks, who lived in St. Paul during his teens and young adulthood, is considered one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century, in addition to his work as a composer, author and filmmaker. He was the only Black photography fellow with the Farm Security Administration when he met Ella Watson, who worked cleaning the building. The 60 photographs on display portray Watson's life and work, which Parks used to document the social inequities in Washington, D.C., in 1942. His most famous photograph shows Watson holding a broom and a mop in front of the American flag — a visual reference to Grant Woods' “American Gothic” painting. Sago says Gordon Parks' photographs offer “a window of the history on what it's like to be a Black American. His photographs give such a nuanced level. They're beautiful to look at: his photographs are all gorgeous. But the sensitivity with which he was taking pictures and the situations he was able to get into by being a Black photographer who was paid by the federal government for much of his career, that's really profound.” “American Gothic: Gordon Parks and Ella Watson” is on display through June 23 at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Admission is free. 

durée : 00:54:59 - Les Nuits de France Culture - par : Albane Penaranda - De ses débuts en 1930 jusqu'à sa disparition en 1975, à la chambre, au Leica ou au Polaroid, Walker Evans, en documentariste consciencieux qu'il était indéniablement, n'aura jamais cessé d'enregistrer le réel en s'effaçant devant lui. Trois premiers volets d'un portrait en cinq temps par Jean Daive. Né en 1903 et mort en 1975, Walker Evans aura rêvé de devenir un grand écrivain. Mais l'admiration qu'il portait aux plus grands d'entre eux, comme Baudelaire et Flaubert, brisa cette ambition. Alors Walker Evans devint un immense photographe. Le présenter comme l'un des pères de la photographie documentaire serait réducteur. Bien plus encore que son nom, ses travaux sont depuis longtemps célèbres dans le monde entier, notamment ses photos mythiques des fermiers d'Alabama plongés dans la plus profonde misère par la Grande Dépression. Elles donnèrent lieu à un livre inclassable, aussi fascinant que terrible, composé avec l'écrivain James Agee : Louons maintenant les grands hommes... En 1990, pour Les chemins de la connaissance, Jean Daive et son invité Gilles Mora proposaient un portrait en cinq volets de Walker Evans. Ici les trois premiers : Un photographe américain à Paris ; L'expérience de La Havane ; Un observateur de la crise américaine. Walker Evans à Paris Gilles Mora raconte qu'en 1924, lors de son séjour à Paris, Walker Evans avait essayé de rencontrer James Joyce. Après avoir traqué l'écrivain pendant plusieurs jours, il avait abandonné. Celui-ci restera, malgré tout, un de ses modèles. Boursier à la Sorbonne, le jeune Walker Evans se familiarise avec le réalisme français. "Dès ce moment-là, Flaubert et Baudelaire deviennent ses deux grandes instances littéraires, devant lesquelles il se prosternera tout au long de sa vie et à partir desquelles il déterminera son esthétique photographique. Il apprend ce qu'est la culture européenne, certains regards esthétiques français. Et il se familiarise avec les conduites sociales qui sont étrangères aux Américains. (.) Une espèce de rapport au spectacle de la rue, qu'il a découvert lors de son séjour à Paris, et qui finalement est étranger à l'oil américain." Sensualité photogaphique De ses images de la Havane, Gilles Mora observe que le photographe "célèbre la femme comme objet de désir", ce qu'il poursuivra par la suite, aux Etats-Unis. "Walker Evans est le seul photographe américain de l'époque à avoir une sensualité et une sexualité photographique, en ce sens que pour lui le paysage américain, en particulier le paysage de la Havane, est un paysage qui est marqué par les signes de la sensualité. Il est frappant de voir que les seuls portraits de femmes sont des portraits de prostituées." En 1935, Walker Evans est engagé par la Farm Security Administration pour une mission photographique sur les effets de la crise aux Etats-Unis, afin de mobiliser les citoyens. Il répugne à cette sorte propagande photographique et réalise une ouvre personnelle. Dès 1929, il avait manifesté son intérêt pour les sujets sociaux dans ses photographies. "La nature m'ennuie à mourir. Je m'intéresse avant tout à la main de l'homme et à la civilisation." Par Jean Daive Les chemins de la connaissance - Walker Evans, un photographe américain, parties 1, 2 et 3 : Un photographe américain à Paris ; L'expérience de La Havane ; Un observateur de la crise américaine (30/04/1990 ; 01/05/1990 ; 02/05/1990) Indexation web : Documentation Sonore de Radio France Archive Ina-Radio France Retrouver l'ensemble du programme d'archives de "La Nuit rêvée de Caroline Champetier"

La cineasta, guionista y profesora de la UPV-EHU, Iratxe Fresneda, analiza el encargo de la Farm Security Administration de EEUU a un grupo de fotógrafos y fotógrafas entre los años 1935 y 1943 para registrar por todo el país la pobreza que asolaba una gran parte de la ciudadanía....

The physical appearance of the photograph is itself a metaphor. The Farm Security Administration photographer John Vachon took it, having stopped along the road in Morton County, North Dakota, in February 1942.

Sans doute l'un des clichés les plus connus de l'histoire de la photographie (après votre dernier post Instagram), dans cet épisode on vous parle de Migrant Mother de Dorothea Lange bien sûr !Prise en 1936, cette icône de la photographie du XXe immortalise le contexte américain de l'époque. Entre Grande Dépression et crise agricole, inutile de préciser que tout le monde ne se la coulait pas douce. Lange, qui était portraitiste en studio, est recrutée par la Farm Security Administration pour documenter la situation. Son portrait humaniste de Florence Thompson symbolise l'immense pauvreté qui sévissait aux États-Unis entre les deux guerres. Migrant Mother, c'est le destin de toute une population fixé sur une pellicule.Cliquez ici pour voir l'oeuvreAuteure des textes : Anne SchmauchDirection Editoriale: Pénélope BoeufVoix : Pénélope BoeufProduction : La Toile Sur Écoute Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

Life has gotten in the way again and while we tend to personal matters, please enjoy this rerun of episode #99 "Let Us Now Praise." This episode, Ward Rosin and I get to talk about a childhood photography hero of mine: Walker Evans. We take a little dive into Evans' life, his stint at the Farm Security Administration during the Great Depression and some of his other photographic endeavors during his life. Ward and I ask what was it about Evans' work that made him such an iconic American Photographer. Also, we dovetail the discussion into a newly discovered project by some high school students from Bellaire, Ohio.  Show Links: In his own words: https://youtu.be/DlXfbixbGG8 NYC Public Library FSA Collection   Library of Congress Walker Evans FSA Collection   Now Let Us Praise Famous Men: Revisited (PBS American Experience 1988)   Bellaire, Ohio: The All-American Town Zine   Antonio M. Rosario's Website, Instagram feed and Facebook page Ward Rosin's Website, Instagram feed and Facebook page. Ornis Photo Website  Street Shots Instagram   Subscribe to us on: Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Spotify Amazon Music iHeart Radio  

Dorothea Lange hatte bereits eine erfolgreiche Karriere als Studiofotografin als sie anfängt die von den Umwälzungen der Weltwirtschaftskrise betroffenen Menschen zu fotografieren und schließlich im Auftrag der Farm Security Administration die USA bereist und dokumentarisch fotografiert. Ihr Foto "Migrant Mother" gilt bis heute als das Foto mit dem höchsten Wiedererkennungswert aus der Zeit.

Verónica Martínez-Matsuda about her book Migrant Citizenship: Race, Rights, and Reform in the U.S. Farm Labor Camp Program (University of Pennsylvania Press). Migrant Citizenship exams the Farm Security Administration’s Migratory Labor Camp Program, and its role in the daily lives of a diverse number of farmworker families. Martínez-Matsuda thoroughly investigates the way public policy was used to intervene in the lives of migrant workers, and how these workers sought to transform their own lives and the country around them through appealing to American democratic principles and forming movements to pursue social justice and civil rights. Martínez-Matsuda’s study showcase the many ways that the FAS’s history, and these migrant workers, is integral to understanding both historical and modern struggles in farm labor relations. Verónica Martínez-Matsuda is an Associate Professor at Cornell University’s ILR School. Derek Litvak is a Ph.D. student in the department of history at the University of Maryland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Verónica Martínez-Matsuda about her book Migrant Citizenship: Race, Rights, and Reform in the U.S. Farm Labor Camp Program (University of Pennsylvania Press). Migrant Citizenship exams the Farm Security Administration’s Migratory Labor Camp Program, and its role in the daily lives of a diverse number of farmworker families. Martínez-Matsuda thoroughly investigates the way public policy was used to intervene in the lives of migrant workers, and how these workers sought to transform their own lives and the country around them through appealing to American democratic principles and forming movements to pursue social justice and civil rights. Martínez-Matsuda’s study showcase the many ways that the FAS’s history, and these migrant workers, is integral to understanding both historical and modern struggles in farm labor relations. Verónica Martínez-Matsuda is an Associate Professor at Cornell University’s ILR School. Derek Litvak is a Ph.D. student in the department of history at the University of Maryland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Verónica Martínez-Matsuda about her book Migrant Citizenship: Race, Rights, and Reform in the U.S. Farm Labor Camp Program (University of Pennsylvania Press). Migrant Citizenship exams the Farm Security Administration’s Migratory Labor Camp Program, and its role in the daily lives of a diverse number of farmworker families. Martínez-Matsuda thoroughly investigates the way public policy was used to intervene in the lives of migrant workers, and how these workers sought to transform their own lives and the country around them through appealing to American democratic principles and forming movements to pursue social justice and civil rights. Martínez-Matsuda’s study showcase the many ways that the FAS’s history, and these migrant workers, is integral to understanding both historical and modern struggles in farm labor relations. Verónica Martínez-Matsuda is an Associate Professor at Cornell University’s ILR School. Derek Litvak is a Ph.D. student in the department of history at the University of Maryland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Verónica Martínez-Matsuda about her book Migrant Citizenship: Race, Rights, and Reform in the U.S. Farm Labor Camp Program (University of Pennsylvania Press). Migrant Citizenship exams the Farm Security Administration’s Migratory Labor Camp Program, and its role in the daily lives of a diverse number of farmworker families. Martínez-Matsuda thoroughly investigates the way public policy was used to intervene in the lives of migrant workers, and how these workers sought to transform their own lives and the country around them through appealing to American democratic principles and forming movements to pursue social justice and civil rights. Martínez-Matsuda’s study showcase the many ways that the FAS’s history, and these migrant workers, is integral to understanding both historical and modern struggles in farm labor relations. Verónica Martínez-Matsuda is an Associate Professor at Cornell University’s ILR School. Derek Litvak is a Ph.D. student in the department of history at the University of Maryland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Verónica Martínez-Matsuda about her book Migrant Citizenship: Race, Rights, and Reform in the U.S. Farm Labor Camp Program (University of Pennsylvania Press). Migrant Citizenship exams the Farm Security Administration’s Migratory Labor Camp Program, and its role in the daily lives of a diverse number of farmworker families. Martínez-Matsuda thoroughly investigates the way public policy was used to intervene in the lives of migrant workers, and how these workers sought to transform their own lives and the country around them through appealing to American democratic principles and forming movements to pursue social justice and civil rights. Martínez-Matsuda’s study showcase the many ways that the FAS’s history, and these migrant workers, is integral to understanding both historical and modern struggles in farm labor relations. Verónica Martínez-Matsuda is an Associate Professor at Cornell University’s ILR School. Derek Litvak is a Ph.D. student in the department of history at the University of Maryland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Verónica Martínez-Matsuda about her book Migrant Citizenship: Race, Rights, and Reform in the U.S. Farm Labor Camp Program (University of Pennsylvania Press). Migrant Citizenship exams the Farm Security Administration’s Migratory Labor Camp Program, and its role in the daily lives of a diverse number of farmworker families. Martínez-Matsuda thoroughly investigates the way public policy was used to intervene in the lives of migrant workers, and how these workers sought to transform their own lives and the country around them through appealing to American democratic principles and forming movements to pursue social justice and civil rights. Martínez-Matsuda’s study showcase the many ways that the FAS’s history, and these migrant workers, is integral to understanding both historical and modern struggles in farm labor relations. Verónica Martínez-Matsuda is an Associate Professor at Cornell University’s ILR School. Derek Litvak is a Ph.D. student in the department of history at the University of Maryland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s the birthday of photographer and author Dorothea Lange (1895), whose iconic work for the Farm Security Administration gave human faces to the Great Depression.

  This episode, Ward Rosin and I get to talk about a childhood photography hero of mine: Walker Evans. We take a little dive into Evans' life, his stint at the Farm Security Administration during the Great Depression and some of his other photographic endeavors during his life. Ward and I ask what was it about Evans' work that made him such an iconic American Photographer. Also, we dovetail the discussion into a newly discovered project by some high school students from Bellaire, Ohio.  Show Links: Ward Rosin's Website, Instagram feed and Facebook page. In his own words: https://youtu.be/DlXfbixbGG8 NYC Public Library FSA Collection   Library of Congress Walker Evans FSA Collection   Now Let Us Praise Famous Men: Revisited (PBS American Experience 1988)   Bellaire, Ohio: The All-American Town Zine       Walker Evans' Images:                                                  

After the Louisiana purchase and the Mexican-American War our country found themselves with a lot of land causing the great westward expansion. Many families ended up in the mid-west, states like Oklahoma, where they were given land to farm and ranch and make something that was their own. In the 1930s those families faced one problem after another - first it was the great depression - then it was the Dust Bowl. A series of poor rain seasons left the central part of the countryside thirsty and left the people hungry. Without food many families were forced to look elsewhere - this is when they heard about our state, CA, and the agricultural mecca that it was. As all those families starting coming here looking for work and opportunity in what is called the largest American migration of people ever, we had to find someway to house and help all these workers.Many were stopped and turned away at the state line, but then the Farm Security Administration came into action and built several worker camps up and down the valley. The most famous of those still standing is our destination today. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In Episode 003, "The Gals of Wrath" tackle The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and consider the dual trauma of the Dust Bowl and Depression, the power and pitfalls of the protest novel, and the plausibility of a central character going missing halfway through this book. Seriously, where did Noah GO?Travel with us as we join the Joads and make our way from Oklahoma to the Golden State!To reread with us, grab a copy of The Grapes of Wrath at your local bookstore or neighborhood library, or download it from your favorite digital book space. More Re:ReadTo learn more about the Dust Bowl and its impact, read The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan, and grab a copy of Ken Burns’ The Dust Bowl at your local library. In this episode, we also mention an essay by James Baldwin, titled “Everybody’s Protest Novel,” which can be found in his collection Notes of a Native Son.Fun Facts Steinbeck = hot. Right? John Steinbeck is said to have borrowed subject matter from the field notes of Farm Security Administration official Sanora Babb, whose own novel on the subject, Whose Names are Unknown, was published in 2004. Check it out!Of the final scene in the book, Ernest Hemingway is rumored to have said “that’s hardly the solution to our economic problem.” We love a good literary zing!In the 1980s, there was a rumor that Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath had been translated into Japanese as ‘The Angry Raisins’. This rumor was, however, false. It has been debunked numerous times.

In this 1st episode of season 2, we sit down with Brian Freeman (@TheRealBFree IG) in Largo, Maryland and talk about photographer health, how he got into photography, workspace setup and brand loyalty, and salesman mentality. We also introduce a new segment for season 2! _ website: www.BFree.co www.
Instagram.com/TheRealBFree Website: www.BryonSummers.com www.
Instagram.com/WereGettingBetter — Photographer Spotlight: Gordon Parks, Known for his images of Harlem gangs, civil rights leaders, and work with publications such as Life magazine is a iconic name in the world of photography. Parks, who was born in Kansas, November 30th, 1912 His work covered American culture from the 1940s up until the early 2000s focusing on race, poverty, civil rights, and urban life. He bought his first camera at a pawn shop as a young man and taught himself the craft. Parks landed a job with the Farm Security Administration capturing the nation's social conditions. After the FSA closed, Parks began to freelance working for fashion magazines, and eventually became the first African American staff photographer for Life Magazine after a photo essay about a Harlem gang leader. In his 20 years at Life, Parks photographed celebrities and political figures like Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., and Stockily Carmichael to name a few. Today it's almost impossible to think about the American civil rights movement and not come across one of Park's images. He's also know as an author as well as the first African American to write and direct a Hollywood feature with his film, The Learning Tree followed by his 1971 film, Shaft. Parks died March 7th 2006 but his work can be found in numerous books and ongoing exhibitions in museums around the world. For more information about Gordon Parks, visit GorfonParksFoundation.org — Music:
KB @push-music --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/bryonsummers/support

True Homosexual Experiences: Boyd McDonald and Straight to Hell (We Heard You Like Books) A World War II veteran from the Great Plains, Boyd McDonald (1925-1993) had the makings of a successful career in the 1950s—an education at Harvard, jobs at Time/Life and IBM—but things didn’t turn out as planned. After 20 years of resentful conformity and worsening alcoholism, McDonald dried out, pawned all of his suits, and went on welfare. It was then that his life truly began. From a tiny room in a New York SRO hotel, McDonald published Straight to Hell, a series of chapbooks collecting readers’ “true homosexual experiences.” Following the example of Alfred Kinsey, McDonald obsessively pursued the truth about sex between men just as gay liberation began to tame America’s sexual outlaws for the sake of legal recognition. Admired by such figures as Gore Vidal and William S. Burroughs, Straight to Hell combined a vigorous contempt for authority with a keen literary style, and was the precursor of queer ’zines decades later. Even after his death, Boyd McDonald continued to trouble the powers that be—he was the subject of a 2006 opinion by U. S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who ruled that one of his books was pornographic while acknowledging that this question is ultimately vague and subjective. William E. Jones conducted in-depth interviews with many people from McDonald’s life, including friends, colleagues, and most unexpectedly, family members who revealed that he was a loving uncle who doted on his nieces and great-nieces. A complex portrait drawn from a wealth of previously unpublished material, True Homosexual Experiences: Boyd McDonald and Straight to Hell is the first biography devoted to a key figure of the American underground. Praise for True Homosexual Experiences “Move over Maxwell Perkins - here's another literary editor who deserves to be more famous than you. Boyd McDonald may have been an alcoholic, sex-obsessed lunatic who masturbated chronically while encouraging his perverted readers to send in endless descriptions of their gay sex lives with heterosexual men but he remained pure in spirit. His “Straight To Hell” chapbooks join Valerie Solanas’s “SCUM Manifesto” as the most radical (and hilarious) filth classics in modern literature.” -- John Waters William E. Jones was born in Canton, Ohio. He received a B. A. from Yale University and an M. F. A. from California Institute of the Arts. He has made the films Massillon (1991) and Finished (1997), which won a Los Angeles Film Critics Association award, the documentary Is It Really So Strange? (2004), and many videos including The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography (1998). His work was included in the 1993 and 2008 Whitney Biennials, and he has had retrospectives at Tate Modern (2005), Anthology Film Archives (2010), and the Austrian Film Museum (2011). Jones has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant, two California Community Foundation Fellowships, and most recently, a Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. His books include "Killed": Rejected Images of the Farm Security Administration (2010), Halsted Plays Himself (2011), Between Artists: Thom Andersen and William E. Jones (2013), Imitation of Christ, named one of the best photo books of 2013 by Time magazine, and Flesh and the Cosmos (2014). He lives in Los Angeles.

One of the most acclaimed American photographers of the twentieth century, Russell Lee developed his distinctive style while documenting the effects of the Great Depression on rural communities for the Farm Security Administration. Lee's iconic images of ordinary Americans in extraordinary circumstances helped inspire the form now known as documentary photography.

BTW (Penny-Ante Editions) Another Skylight favorite, Jarett Kobek, returns with his most comic work yet, a love letter to Los Angeles and terrible relationships. For tonight's reading he will be joined by artist William E. Jones. Bad relationships, interracial dating, cross-faith intermarriage, the endless pangs of love, reality television, Muslim fundamentalism, Crispin Hellion Glover, Internet pornography, Turkish secularism in the era of Erdoğan, the amorous habits of Thomas Jefferson, errant dogs, monogamous cheeseburger tattoos, alcoholics without  recovery, 9/11 PTSD, female Victorian novelists, the people who go to California to die. Jarett Kobek's second novel, BTW, presents the tragicomedy of a young man in Los Angeles balancing a lunatic father, two catastrophic relationships, identity politics, and American pop culture at its most confused. Praise for BTW: “Moving from Williamsburg to Echo Park, Kobek's account of post-NYU life in the aughts (so generic it can barely be lived, yet alone retold) is surprisingly disrupted as primitive identities of religion and race surface among this young, well-connected, smart and otherwise evolved group of friends. In this, his second novel, Kobek's writing continues to impress."--CHRIS KRAUS, author of Where Art Belongs and I Love Dick “Half of BTW is a coming of age novel about the narrator's romantic entanglements, the most significant of which turns out to be with the city of Los Angeles; the other half is the real love story, played out between the narrator and his father. This father, who is by turns hectoring, profane, and tenderin phone conversations and voicemail messages from his native Turkey, counts as one of the great comic characters in recent fiction, the sort of eccentric with whom you spend a minute in an elevator but can't forget."--William Jones, author of Halstead Plays Himself "Jarett Kobek's deceptively artless prose responds like a flower to the sunlight of joy as to the cold rain of alienation. BTW is a book that could be as big as Bright Lights, Big City with the same general framework of a sharply experimental novel that yet can boast a big heart, a joke on every page, an overwhelming city magnificently delineated, and a handful of fascinating and all too real characters.--Kevin Killian, author of Spread Eagle and Impossible Princess “It's like Kobek keyed into John Kennedy Toole's lost biorhythm and resurrected it amid the cosmopolitan absurdities of Los Angeles. Between Tabitha Brown, Khadija, the Butterfed Behemoth and the legendary Mehmet, BTW adds up to a funny and hyper-literate look at failing relationships.”--Ken Baumann, star of the television show The Secret Life of the American Teenager Jarett Kobek is an American author and essayist living in California. His book ATTA (Semiotexte, 2011) is a fictionalized psychedelic biography of the lead 9/11 terrorist and If You Won't Read, Then Why Should I Write? was published in 2012 by Penny-Ante Editions, both of which were longlisted for Novel of the Year by 3:AM Magazine. His most recent criticism, «Je suis devenu un magicien noir», was published as a catalogue essay by White Cube of London. William E Jones  is an artist and filmmaker born in Ohio and now living in Los Angeles.  He has made two feature length experimental films, Massillon (1991) and Finished (1997), the documentary Is It Really So Strange? (2004), videos including The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography (1998) and many installations.  His work has been the subject of retrospectives at Tate Modern (2005), Anthology Film Archives (2010), the Austrian Film Museum and Oberhausen Short Film Festival (both 2011).  His group shows include the 1993 and 2008 Whitney Biennials, the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009), and “Untitled (Death by Gun)” at the 12th Istanbul Biennial (2011). His books include Is It Really So Strange? (2006),Tearoom (2008),“Killed”: Rejected Images of the Farm Security Administration (2010),Halsted Plays Himself (2011), and Imitation of Christ (2013).  His solo exhibition, Heraclitus Fragment 124 Automatically Illustrated, opens at David Kordansky Gallery in January 2014.

Born in Paris in 1928 to Russian parents, Elliott Erwitt spent his childhood in Milan, then emigrated to the US, via France, with his family in 1939. As a teenager living in Hollywood, he developed an interest in photography and worked in a commercial darkroom before experimenting with photography at Los Angeles City College. In 1948 he moved to New York and exchanged janitorial work for film classes at the New School for Social Research. Erwitt traveled in France and Italy in 1949 with his trusty Rolleiflex camera. In 1951 he was drafted for military service and undertook various photographic duties while serving in a unit of the Army Signal Corps in Germany and France. While in New York, Erwitt met Edward Steichen, Robert Capa and Roy Stryker, the former head of the Farm Security Administration. Stryker initially hired Erwitt to work for the Standard Oil Company, where he was building up a photographic library for the company, and subsequently commissioned him to undertake a project documenting the city of Pittsburgh. In 1953 Erwitt joined Magnum Photos and worked as a freelance photographer for Collier's, Look, Life, Holiday and other luminaries in that golden period for illustrated magazines. To this day he is for hire and continues to work for a variety of journalistic and commercial outfits. In the late 1960s Erwitt served as Magnum's president for three years. He then turned to film: in the 1970s he produced several noted documentaries and in the 1980s eighteen comedy films for Home Box Office. Erwitt became known for benevolent irony, and for a humanistic sensibility traditional to the spirit of Magnum.  www.elliotterwitt.com http://www.magnumphotos.com/ http://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/erwittdc/ www.thecandidframe.com info@thecandidframe.com

From 1935 to 1941 the Farm Security Administration’s photographic project provided an unparalleled documentary record of how the Great Depression and the New Deal affected rural North Carolinians. Diana Bell-Kite, associate curator at the North Carolina Museum of History, and Emily Catherman, park manager at Historic Oak View Park discuss the museum’s exhibit In Search of a New Deal, Images of North Carolina 1935-1941.

If you're like most Americans – or most people on earth – you have a pair of jeans, or maybe five, in your wardrobe. There's a decent chance you're wearing jeans right now. These humble pants were invented by a Reno tailor in the 1870s in response to a frustrated customer whose husband kept wearing through his pants too quickly. How, then, did they become a global phenomenon expected to exceed $100 billion in sales by 2025? Joining me to help answer that question is historian, writer, and screenwriter, Dr. Carolyn Purnell, author of Blue Jeans.Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Blue Jeans,” composed by Josef Pasternack and performed by the Peerless Quartet in 1921; audio is in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is “Five Idaho farmers, members of Ola self-help sawmill co-op, in the woods standing against a load of logs ready to go down to their mill about three miles away,” photographed by Dorothea Lange in Gem County, Idaho, in October 1939 for the Farm Security Administration; the image is in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress.Additional Sources:“The Origin of Blue Jeans,” by Joseph Stromberg, Smithsonian Magazine, September 26, 2011.“The History of Denim,” Levi Strauss & Co., July 4, 2019.“Riveted: The History of Jeans [video],” PBS American Experience Season 34, Episode 1, February 7, 2022. “Durable and enduring, blue jeans turn 150,” by Jessica Green, NPR Weekend Edition Sunday, May 23, 2023.“Behind 150 years of the world's most famous denim jeans,” by Gordon Ng, Vogue Singapore, May 3, 2023.“How Denim Became a Political Symbol of the 1960s,” by Brandon Tensley, Smithsonian Magazine, December 2020.“Throwback Thursday: Levi's — Right For School?” Levi Strauss & Co., September 24, 2015.