Labor and Work | Highlights from Cornell’s Photography Collections

The current set is on the subject of labor and work. Most of the pictures included are held within the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives, a part of Cornell University Library, which maintains a major assortment of pictures illustrating American working life within the twentieth century. Of particular curiosity are Frank and Lillian Gilbreth’s time movement research of manufacturing facility work and on a regular basis life, exemplifying the scientific administration motion of the early twentieth century that modified the methods many Americans labored. Also of be aware are the works of Louise Boyle, whose pictures of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union in 1937 doc not simply the working circumstances within the fields, but in addition the hardships of the Depression, the celebrations of immersion baptisms, and quiet occasions at residence.

Photographs of the Midvale Steel Works type a well-known visible vocabulary for the United States’ industrial historical past, resonant with the imagery of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) murals that celebrated industrial labor. The Center is well-known for its assortment on the Triangle Factory fireplace, an industrial tragedy that took the lives of 146 folks in 1911. The photos documenting this occasion, its aftermath, and the garment trade are among the many most closely used supplies within the archives.