Living the American Dream: Marion Post Wolcott’s Photographs of Working Life in the USA 1930s-1940s

Post documented the lives of Americans whose work was often back-breaking, thankless, and unknown to the majority of US citizens.

Marion Post Wolcott, photography, America, 1930s, 1940s, working

Children from Wadesboro, North Carolina, 1938 by Marion Post Wolcott

The work was year round. Photographing men and women picking cotton, shucking corn, cutting tobacco leaves, citrus fruit packing, coal mining, or hanging around the theatres and halls on Beale Street, from where rock ‘n’ roll would one day come.

The photographer was Marion Post Wolcott (1910-1990). She was born in New Jersey, a June baby, her parents split when she was young. Post was sent to boarding school. Spent her holidays with her mother in Greenwich Village. Post found herself in the company of her mother’s friends: artists, writers, filmmakers, and photographers. It was hip before Beat. Her mother’s friends encouraged Post to seize the day, go live and discover what she wanted to do.

Post was into dance. She studied at the New School, where all the bright young things formed their very own counter culture. She drifted into teaching but found teaching was not as good as doing. Travelling across the Eastern Seaboard of America, she was acutely aware of the effects of the Wall Street Crash and the financial ruin that impoverished so many Americans. Post was lucky, she had the money to change her life. She went to stay with her sister Helen in Vienna. Together they studied photography under the tutelage of Austrian photographer Trude Fleischmann (1895-1990). In Vienna, Post saw first hand the brutal rise of National Socialists. Post and her sister returned to America. Her experiences in Vienna led Post to join the Anti-Fascist group.

Post had made a portfolio of work from her time in Vienna. She touted her work around different agencies. This led to work on newspapers and eventually a contract to join the Farm Security Administration as a photographer. Post’s remit was to document working life across America in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

Post documented the lives of Americans whose work was often back-breaking, thankless, and unknown to the majority of US citizens. In 1941, Post met Leon Oliver Wolcott, who was then Deputy Director of War Relations for the U. S. Department of Agriculture. The pair married and started a family. Post found it difficult to continue her photographic career while raising a family. She gave up to focus on being a Mrs. Post Wolcott.

Most of Post Wolcott’s work was largely ignored or forgotten until it was “rediscovered” in the 1970s. A series of exhibitions and books highlighted Post’s photographic career. At an exhibition of her work in 1986, Post said:

“Women have come a long way, but not far enough. . . . Speak with your images from your heart and soul.”

 

Marion Post Wolcott, photography, America, 1930s, 1940s, working class

Three children sitting on the porch of a house, 1940.

Workers returning home in evening, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1935

Marion Post Wolcott, photography, America, 1930s, 1940s, working class

Outside the movie house, Beale Street, Memphis, Tennessee, October 1939.

 

Marion Post Wolcott, photography, America, 1930s, 1940s, working class, buildings, streets

Hotel Clark on Beale Street, Memphis, 1939.

 

Marion Post Wolcott, photography, America, 1930s, 1940s, working class, buildings, streets

Beale Street, Memphis, 1939.

 

Marion Post Wolcott, photography, America, 1930s, 1940s, working class, buildings, streets

Asher Laundry, New Orleans, 1940.

[Untitled photo, possibly related to: Payday, coal mining town, Omar, West Virginia] Contributor Names Wolcott, Marion Post, 1910-1990, photographer Created / Published [1938 Sept.]

Payday, coal mining town, Omar, West Virginia, September 1938.

Marion Post Wolcott, photography, America, 1930s, 1940s, working class, buildings, streets

Beale Street, Memphis, Tennessee. Rex Billiard Hall for Colored, 1939.

 

Marion Post Wolcott, photography, workers, working class, America, documentary photography, life

Tobacco workers at the Russell Spears’ farm, Lexington, Kentucky, 1940.

 

Marion Post Wolcott, photography, citrus pickers, America, documentary photography, people, places, 1940s

Workers packing citrus for distribution, 1939.

 

Marion Post Wolcott, photography, work, America, working class, 1930s, 1940s, FSA

Corn shucking on Uncle Henry Garrett’s place, Tally Ho, near Stem, Granville County, North Carolina, 1939.

 

Marion Post Wolcott, photography, America, 1930s, 1940s, working class, buildings, streets

Coal miner, Capels, McDowell County, West Virginia, 1938.

 

Marion Post Wolcott, photography, America, 1930s, 1940s, working class, buildings, streets

Coal miner’s wife washing clothes on front porch, Chaplin, West Virginia, 1938.

 

Marion Post Wolcott, photography, coal mine, West Virginia, America, documentary photography, people, places

Coal mine tipple, Capels, McDowell County, Appalachia, West Virginia, 1938.

 

Marion Post Wolcott, photography, America, 1930s, working class, poor, street photography, documentary

Woman washing clothes outside of shacks along the river, on the highway between Charleston and Gauley Bridge, West Virginia, 1938.

 

Marion Post Wolcott, photography, America, 1930s, 1940s, working class, buildings, streets

A trapper and his children taking muskrat pelts into the FSA (Farm Security Administration) auction sale held in a dancehall on Delacroix Island, Louisiana, 1941.

 

Marion Post Wolcott, photography, America, working class, 1930s, documentary,

A mother and her youngest child, Coffee County, Alabama, 1938.

 

Marion Post Wolcott, photography, America, working class, people, children, maypole, 1930s

Children dancing around a maypole, Alabama, 1939.

 

Marion Post Wolcott, photography, America, Kentucky, children, working class, documentary photography, street photography

Children cross a swing bridge, Hazard, Kentucky, 1940.

 

Marion Post Wolcott, photography, America, workers, working class, people, places, 1940s, documentary photography

Migratory laborers playing checkers in front of a ‘jook joint’ during slack season for vegetable pickers. Belle Glade, Florida, 1941.

 

Marion Post Wolcott, photography, working class, poor, America, depression, 1930s, 1940s, documentary photography

Migratory laborers outside of a ‘juke joint’ during a slack season, Belle Glade, Florida, February 1941.

Living quarters and “juke joint” for migratory workers, a slack season; Belle Glade, Fla.

 

Marion Post Wolcott, photography, America, 1930s, 1940s, documentary photography, people, places

Marion Post Wolcott with Rolleiflex camera, Montgomery County, Maryland, January 1940.

[Marion Post, principal photographer, Historical Section, Division of Information, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing slightly left, notarized photograph attached to letter of introduction

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