Westmoreland Homesteads

Artist Walker Evans (American, 1903 - 1975)

DateNegative July 1935, print 1935-36

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage: 7 1/2 × 9 1/2 in. (19.1 × 24.1 cm)
Support: 13 7/8 × 11 in. (35.2 × 27.9 cm)

ClassificationsPhotograph

Credit LineGift of William H. Redd and James T. Redd III, in memory of their father, James T. Redd Jr., 2021

Object number2021.3.3

DescriptionBroad view of grassy hillside (clover?) with about a dozen similar wooden houses visible at left and right alongside a small road.
eMuseum Notes

Emuseum Notes

This photograph was made to document the Westmoreland Homesteads pboject of the Resettlement Administration, a federal New Deal agency created in May 1935 that later became the Farm Security Administration. One of its primary aims was to relocate low-income families to planned communities where they could own a home and grow their own food. This documentary style photo promotes the new housing in the countryside near Pittsburgh, emphasizing the spacious, natural setting and brand-new homes. This photograph may have been taken by Walker Evans, who didn’t regard these images as political statements but as records of contemporary conditions.

On View

Not on view

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