Object of the Month: “Ella Watson, American Gothic, Washington, D.C.” by Gordon Parks

In his well-known {photograph} Ella Watson, American Gothic, Washington, D.C. (1942), Gordon Parks (1912 –2006) positioned Ella Watson, who labored as a janitor in authorities workplaces, in entrance of an American flag with a brush and mop in her fingers. In her pose and title, she echoes Grant Wood’s 1930 portray American Gothic, an iconic picture of rural American resilience, whereas additionally offering a critique of the nation’s inequities.

Parks created this picture whereas on a year-long fellowship with the Farm Security Administration (FSA) in Washington, D.C, a New Deal program initially designed to assist farmers get well from Depression-era agricultural disasters. In the Nineteen Thirties, the FSA started hiring photographers to document the circumstances of those that lived in rural or small-town environments and illustrate the need of federal help. In addition to Parks, well-known photographers like Ben Shahn, Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, and Arthur Rothstein labored for the FSA (and their works may be discovered within the BCMA’s assortment).

Having spent his youth in progressive Northern cities like Minneapolis and Chicago, Parks was unprepared for the challenges he confronted upon his arrival within the then-racially segregated metropolis of Washington, D.C. Parks recalled that in a single day he was “refused service at restaurants, barred from a theater, and dismissed by a department store clerk.” He later mentioned, “I had experienced a kind of bigotry and discrimination here that I never expected to experience.”

In response, Parks determined to give attention to documenting Black life within the capitol, and turned his consideration to Ella Watson, who labored as a charwoman, or cleansing lady, within the FSA constructing. After studying about her household and her struggles, Parks determined to make Watson the topic of his first prolonged image story, and for 4 months Watson gave the photographer entry to her house and neighborhood. The ensuing pictures—which present Watson not solely her work as a custodian, but additionally at house along with her household, and serving as a deaconess at her church—had been a breakthrough in Parks’ profession. Through Watson, Parks gained an intimate, humanist perspective on Black American life past the historic gleam of white Washington, D.C., one which captured each struggles and moments of pleasure.

Parks noticed in Watson a potent critique of the nation’s inequalities in addition to an illustration of American fortitude. In creating the {photograph}, the artist mentioned: “I felt that I must photograph this woman in a way that would make me feel or make the public feel about what Washington, D.C., was in 1942. So I put her before the American flag with a broom in one hand and a mop in another. And I said, ‘American Gothic’—that’s how I felt at the moment.” The {photograph} reveals Parks’ expertise of coming to phrases with the segregated metropolis he as soon as embraced as “the seat of democracy,” with all its guarantees and perils.

Notably, When Parks confirmed American Gothic to Roy Stryker, the pinnacle of the Historical Division of the FSA and Parks’ boss, he was warned that its publication may price them their jobs. As the FSA was a authorities company, the provocative picture was thought-about too controversial. Despite being taken in 1942, the photograph remained unpublished till 1948, when Parks turned the primary Black employees photographer at LIFE journal.

Today, Gordon Parks’ Ella Watson, American Gothic, Washington, D.C. is likely one of the most iconic pictures within the historical past of American artwork and documentary pictures writ giant. It is at the moment on view in USA @ 250 on the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. 

Anne Strachan Cross
Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow