Sunday, December 16, 2012

New Deal Photographs of West Virginia, 1934 - 1943


I always joke about the end of the year as "the fabled down time" in my profession. I wish...

One of the many wonderful things I've been doing beyond work and my new non-profit (more about that soon) was hosting Betty Rivard from West Virginia. She just finished editing this book on New Deal Photographers in her state and it includes some images by my dad, Arthur Siegel, when he was in the OWI. I am learning so much from Betty's book, not just about the time and some of the same issues about poverty as there are now in our country, but more about my dad's history as well. Because info on my dad is hard to come by, Betty came to Chicago to do research on Arthur. She is doing a small show in W VA for the 100th anniversary of my dad's birth. All the photos from this time are available through the Library of Congress.

Born in Detroit and having gone to Berkeley, Betty was intent on staring at Lake Michigan before she returned to her mountain home.
 

4 comments:

Altoon Sultan said...

It's wonderful that your father will get some renewed attention, which his work certainly deserves.

Julie Siegel said...

Thank you Altoon: I agree!

LINDA from Each Little World said...

Catching up on your posts! Did you get lots of snow? We are buried and are going to have some major garden damage. One of the 60 yr.old Austrian pines came down and took out the power line among other things. Looks like it will have damaged or destroyed a number of other trees in its path. It's up in the back corner of the garden and fell toward the fence. Power line is still down so we can't really go check it out — assuming we can make it through the drifts! Hope you have power and are OK.

Julie Siegel said...

Oh dear: the inevitable change in our gardens is not predictable! We had no snow, adding to our infamous record.