Marion Post Wolcott

I've done some blog posts on photographers of the 1930s and '40s who worked for the Farm Security Administration and one on a photographer who worked for Federal Art Project.[1] They were all talented and their work endures. Photography, like most professions in that era, was seen as man's work. Women photographers were as rare as women doctors, women journalists, or women painters.[2] The head of FSA's photographic unit departed radically from the social, cultural, and even governmental norms of the day when he hired women — some of them self-taught, others almost entirely unschooled in the craft — to document the Depression era and World War II America. Among them was the subject of this blog post, Marion Post Wolcott.

This is one of her FSA photos. Her field notes record that it shows "mountain people carrying a homemade coffin up the creek bed to the family graveyard where it will be buried. This section is too isolated to have a formal funeral service immediately."

{Up South Fork of the Kentucky River, Kentucky, 1940 August, Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection; source: Library of Congress}

Here, with her captions, are some photos that Wolcott took of a memorial service such as the one she mentions in field notes for the previous shot.

{Mother and relatives weeping at the grave of deceased at memorial meeting. Preacher, with hands over ears, is praying. Near Jackson, Breathitt County, Kentucky, 1940 Aug.; source: Library of Congress}

{Friends of the deceased's family, at an annual memorial meeting in the family cemetery. In the mountains near Jackson, Kentucky, 1940 August; source: Library of Congress}

{Gravestones in a family cemetery where memorial meetings are held annually. In the mountains near Jackson, Kentucky, 1940 July-August; source: Library of Congress}

{Friends of the deceased's family, at an annual memorial meeting in the family cemetery. In the mountains near Jackson, Kentucky, 1940 Aug.?; source: Library of Congress}

And finally, here is another photo from her visit to Breathitt, Kentucky.

{Mountain girl riding home from school on muleback. Up South fork of the Kentucky River. Breathitt County, Kentucky, 1940 Sept.?; source: Library of Congress}

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This photo shows Wolcott in 1940.

{Photograph of Wolcott, "Up Stinking Creek, Pine Mountain, Kentucky," February 1940}

This one, taken in 1940, is on the wikipedia page for her.


This one by another of the FSA photographers shows her on a farm in Montgomery County, Maryland.

{Marion Post Wolcott with Rolleiflex and Speed Graphic in hand, by Arthur Rothstein, 1940 Jan.; source: Library of Congress}

This one was taken in New York in 1934 by Trude Fleischmann.


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Some sources — web sites:

Color photos in LC collection via Flickr

Marion Post Wolcott, New Deal Narratives, FSA photography, Juliet Gorman, May 2001, Oberlin College

Marion Post Wolcott

Marion Post Wolcott on Shorpy.com, which is "a vintage photo blog featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago."

Oral history interview with Marion Post Wolcott conducted by Richard Doud at her home in Mill Valley, California, January 18, 1965.

The Photography of Marion Post Wolcott from the University of Virginia, edited by Linda Wolcott-Moore

Marion Post Wolcott Photography for the Farm Security Administration from the University of Virginia

Marion Post Wolcott - FSA photos Part 1 from the University of Virginia

Marion Post Wolcott - FSA photos Part 2 from the University of Virginia

Marion Post Wolcott - FSA photos Part 3 from the University of Virginia

Marion Post Wolcott Post FSA Photography from the University of Virginia

Marion Post Wolcott A biographical sketch by Linda Wolcott-Moore

This link takes you to photos of her and images of her photographs on Google: Marion Post Wolcott on Google Images.

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Some sources — books:

Looking for the light: the hidden life and art of Marion Post Wolcott by Paul Hendrickson (New York: Knopf, 1992)

Marion Post Wolcott: a photographic journey by Jack Hurley (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1989)

Marion Post Wolcott, FSA Photographs (Carmel, CA: Friends of Photography, 1983)

The photographs of Marion Post Wolcott (Washington, DC: Library of Congress in association with GILES, 2008)

Marion Post Wolcott: Farm Security Administration photographer in eastern Kentucky by Margaret Anna MacKichan (University of New Mexico, 1977)

Let us now praise famous women: women photographers for the U.S. government, 1935 to 1944: Esther Bubley, Marjory Collins, Pauline Ehrlich, Dorothea Lange, Martha McMillan Roberts, Marion Post Wolcott, Ann Rosener, Louise Rosskam by Andrea Fisher (National Museum of Photography, Film, and Television, Great Britain, Pandora Press, 1987)

The farm security administration photographs of Marion Post Wolcott: a cultural history by Julie M. Boddy (State University of New York at Buffalo, 1982)

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Notes:

[1] To see my FSA and FAP posts, click the FSA and FAP labels on the right-hand panel of this blog

[2] Curators in the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division have put together a useful web page on Women Photojournalists of twentieth century America.