Shifting Drifts of Dust Will Soon Force this Farmer to Abandon His Home Near Liberal, Kansas
Artist
Arthur Rothstein
DateNegative March 1936, printed 1930s
Mediumgelatin silver print
DimensionsImage: 9 × 9 in. (22.9 × 22.9 cm)
Support: 14 × 11 in. (35.6 × 27.9 cm)
Mat: 20 5/16 × 16 5/16 in. (51.6 × 41.4 cm)
Support: 14 × 11 in. (35.6 × 27.9 cm)
Mat: 20 5/16 × 16 5/16 in. (51.6 × 41.4 cm)
ClassificationsPhotograph
Credit LineGift of William H. Redd and James T. Redd III, in memory of their father, James T. Redd Jr., 2021
Object number2021.3.1
DescriptionDistance view of relatively bare landscape with drifts of wind-borne dust. In background is a wooden house with two chimneys and several windows. Next to it at right is shrubbery and a windmill. In the foreground at right of is a tree without leaves and in middle foreground is a dead tree limb or plant partially buried by dust.eMuseum Notes
Arthur Rothstein was the first photographer sent into the field to document the project of the Resettlement Administration, a federal New Deal agency created in May 1935 that later became the Farm Security Administration. It’s initial goals were to relocate low-income families to planned communities where they could own a home and grown their own food. Rothstein’s assignment here was to photograph the dire living conditions of the people the agency was seeking to relocate, such as this house in Kansas being consumed by the effects of the severe dust storms sweeping through many drought-striken states.
On View
Not on view
