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The Encyclopedia of Photography’s Art and History

    You Have Seen Their Faces

    • Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971)

    Human faces and living conditions in the American South during the Great Depression, capturing scenes of labor, poverty, and familial life.

    Mother Surrounded by Children, Dahlonega, Georgia, 1936

    You Have Seen Their Faces

    • Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971)

    Human faces and living conditions in the American South during the Great Depression, capturing scenes of labor, poverty, and familial life.

    Mother Surrounded by Children, Dahlonega, Georgia, 1936
    Elbow Creek, Arkansas “My father doesn’t hire any field hands, or sharecroppers. He makes a lot of cotton, about sixty bales a year. Me and my brother stay home from school to work for him.”
    Lansdale, Arkansas "There comes a time when there's nothing to do except just sit."
    Happy Hollow, Georgia “Sometimes I tell my husband we couldn't be worst of if we tried"
    Hood’s Chapel, Georgia “I reckon I was naturally born a black boy in the white man’s country.”
    College Grove, Tennessee “We've got a first-class God."
    Marshall, Arkansas “It never felt much like Sunday to me until I plucked the guitar some.”
    East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana “Blackie ain't good for nothing, he’s just an old hound dog.”
    Maiden Lane, Georgia “A man learns not to expect much after he’s farmed cotton most of his life.”
    Okefenokee Swamp, Georgia “Every month the relief office gives them four cans of beef, a can of dried peas, and five dollars, and the old lady generally spends a dollar and a half of it for snuff.”
    Ocelot, Georgia “I got more children now than I know what to do with, but they keep coming along like water- melons in the summertime.”
    Yazoo City, Mississippi “I think it’s only right that the government ought to be run with people like us in mind.”
    Clinton, Louisiana “I don’t know what ever happened to the family that built this house before the War. A lot of families live here now. My husband and me moved in and get two rooms for five dollars a month.”
    Locket, Georgia “It ain’t hardly worth the trouble to go on living"
    Locket, Georgia "I've done the best I knew how all my life, but it didn’t amount to much in the end.”

    Books

    The Photographs of Margaret Bourke-White

    (Bonanza Books, 1972)

    Margaret Bourke-White: Moments in History

    (D.A.P., 2013)

    Related Projects

    The Family, Luzzara, 1953
    The Village
    • Paul Strand (1890-1976)

    Portrayal of rural Italian village life, revealing intimate details of community members in domestic and communal spaces, highlighting unromanticized realities of post-war Italy.

    Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
    • Walker Evans (1903-1975)

    Unembellished portrayal of rural poverty through meticulously composed photographs and introspective text, revealing the deep interplay between creative expression and social awareness.

    Untitled, 1929-31. Collection of The Museum of Modern Art. Image courtesy of MoMA.
    Roll, Jordan, Roll
    • Doris Ulmann (1882-1934)

    African American life and culture in rural South Carolina during an era of social and cultural transition.

    Behind the Saint-Lazare station, Paris, 1932. Image courtesy of Magnum Photos.
    The Decisive Moment
    • Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004)

    Ephemeral human moments portrayed through a fusion of spontaneity and precise composition.

    Sunday morning is the only time these cuties get a chance to get cleaned up... Image courtesy of ICP.
    Naked City
    • Weegee (1899-1968)

    Nighttime scenes of 1930s-1940s New York, portraying urban extremes of crime and social life through high-contrast flash photography and candid depictions of human emotion.

    "Dinner is Served"
    The English at Home
    • Bill Brandt (1904-1983)

    Resilience and inequality framed by the economic depression, political upheaval, and the photographer’s intimate exploration of societal challenges.