Margaret Bourke-White - The Louisville Flood remains an iconic image of the Great Depression - The American Way of Life.
Bourke-White began her career in the early 1930s, and in 1937 when the Ohio River flooded Louisville Kentucky, she was sent to the area as a staff photographer for LIFE magazine. Documenting what was one of the largest natural disasters in the history of the United States, Bourke-White's image offered a commentary on perceived racial and economic inequities. This photograph shows African-Americans queuing outside a flood relief agency in front of a billboard, produced by National Association of Manufacturers, that depicts a cheerful white middle-class family in their car. The billboard's heading "World's Highest Standard of Living," and the slogan "There's no way like the American Way," can be treated with ironic skepticism given the reality that is playing out in front of the "myth". Ranking alongside the likes of Arthur Rothstein and work of the FSA photographers (who documented the devastation of the Dust Bowl earlier in the decade), The Louisville Flood photograph has taken on iconic status in the field of American, and international photojournalism. Confirming, the legacy of this work, the Whitney Museum of American Art exhibits the image with the following caption: "as a powerful depiction of the gap between the propagandist representation of American life and the economic hardship faced by minorities and the poor, Bourke-White's image has had a long afterlife in the history of photography" The Art Story
Size: 3300px × 2416px
Photo credit: © photo-fox / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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