Speaker 1: You're listening to American Shadows, a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky. French historian
Speaker 1: Eduard de Lablay had an idea. It was eighteen sixty five,
Speaker 1: the American Civil War was drawing to a close, and
Speaker 1: he wanted France to give the US a gift. He
Speaker 1: decided on a statue that would mark America's hard thought
Speaker 1: democracy and celebrate its centennial. And he didn't propose just
Speaker 1: any statue. His concept would take years to build. Frederic
Speaker 1: Auguste Bartoldi, who shared Labala's vision, was commissioned for the
Speaker 1: monumental task. Bartoldi traveled to America in eighteen seventy one
Speaker 1: and chose Bedloe's Island for the statue's location. Though small,
Speaker 1: its position made it a landmark noticeable to every ship
Speaker 1: entering the harbor. He envisioned the statue greeting all who
Speaker 1: entered the port and thus the nation. The first phase
Speaker 1: of construction began in France in eighteen seventy six. Bartoldi
Speaker 1: created the arm holding the torch first. In eighteen seventy
Speaker 1: eight he finished the head and shoulders. He finally completed
Speaker 1: the statue in eighteen eighty four. While Bartoldi and his
Speaker 1: team in France put the final touches on the statue,
Speaker 1: a crew in the US built the pedestal. In eighteen
Speaker 1: eighty five. All that remained was shipping the Statue of
Speaker 1: Liberty to her new home. Workers disassembled the statue and
Speaker 1: carefully packed it in over two hundred crates. The Zaire,
Speaker 1: a French frigate, arrived in New York that June. The
Speaker 1: laborers got to work erecting the pedestal and the statue.
Speaker 1: On October of eighteen eighty six, President Grover Cleveland stood
Speaker 1: before a crowd of thousands to dedicate the three hundred
Speaker 1: and five foot tall statue. From that moment, Bartoldie's vision
Speaker 1: came to life. The Statue of Liberty greeted everyone who
Speaker 1: entered the harbor. In eighteen ninety two, when Ellis Island opened,
Speaker 1: immigrants viewed the statue as a symbol of freedom, hope,
Speaker 1: and a new way of life. It remained both monument
Speaker 1: and working lighthouse until nineteen thirty three, when the National
Speaker 1: Park Service took over its care and maintenance. Though they
Speaker 1: shut down the lighthouse, the Park Service opened the Statute
Speaker 1: of Visitors The iconic plaque and poem of the New
Speaker 1: Colossus by Emma Lazarus became a favorite photo opportunity for tourists,
Speaker 1: and like the statue itself, the poem, with its famous
Speaker 1: lines welcoming the tired and huddled masses, had its own story.
Speaker 1: New York born Emma and her siblings wanted for nothing.
Speaker 1: Her father owned a successful sugar refinery and provided his
Speaker 1: family with a comfortable lifestyle, and private tutors taught them German, French,
Speaker 1: and Italian, in addition to other subjects. In eighteen sixty six,
Speaker 1: seventeen year old Emma authored her first book, titled Poems
Speaker 1: and Translations. Her father loved her work and published the
Speaker 1: book to support his daughter. Emma sent a copy to
Speaker 1: Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the famous writers shared her father's
Speaker 1: praise and mentored the very talented Emma For several years.
Speaker 1: She wrote more books expressing her opinions on life. In
Speaker 1: eighty three, she donated a sonnet to help raise money
Speaker 1: for the pedestal. The words became synonymous with immigration, yet
Speaker 1: the poem didn't become part of the statue until after
Speaker 1: Emma's death. She died a year after Cleveland's speech, and
Speaker 1: mostly her sonnet was forgotten. The new Colossus wasn't memorialized
Speaker 1: until nineteen o three, when one of Emma's friends pushed
Speaker 1: to make the sonnet a permanent part of the monument.
Speaker 1: While we recall the names behind many famous works of art,
Speaker 1: others remained in the shadows of their creations. This is
Speaker 1: one such story. I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. Welcome to American shadows US.
Speaker 1: What many people born to the lower socioeconomic status at
Speaker 1: the time. We don't know what year and Monia Lewis
Speaker 1: was born. When asked, she gave different responses for different situations.
Speaker 1: It could have been eighteen forty two, eighteen forty four,
Speaker 1: or even eighteen fifty four. What we do know is
Speaker 1: that she was born in New York sometime in July Catherine.
Speaker 1: Her mother was Afro indigenous of the Ojibwe people and
Speaker 1: lived in the Credit River Reserve on Lake Ontario. Her
Speaker 1: father was as mysterious as her birth year. Some believe
Speaker 1: her father was Samuel Lewis, a valet of Afro Haitian heritage.
Speaker 1: Other sources speculate that African and Native American writer Robert
Speaker 1: Benjamin Lewis was her father. Proper birth certificates were rare
Speaker 1: at the time, and none appears to have been recorded
Speaker 1: for her. And Monia had a half brother, Samuel, from
Speaker 1: her father's first marriage, and even though Sam was nine
Speaker 1: years older, the two siblings were inseparable for a while.
Speaker 1: The children enjoyed a perfect family life with loving parents
Speaker 1: and time spent growing up in Greenbush, New York, and
Speaker 1: by the time Edmonia turned nine, however, both parents had died.
Speaker 1: Sam and Agmonia went to live with their mother's sisters
Speaker 1: near Niagara Falls. Despite the tragedy, the children thrived. Edmonia
Speaker 1: continued to make the traditional a jibwei crafts her mother
Speaker 1: had taught her. Tourists loved her artwork, often buying whatever
Speaker 1: Edmonia and her aunt's maide. She ran through the forests
Speaker 1: in the summer with her brother and other local children.
Speaker 1: They fished, swam, and explored the great outdoors, even hunted
Speaker 1: together for the rest of her days. Agmonia recalled this
Speaker 1: part of her childhood as some of the best times
Speaker 1: of her life. But life moved on, and one day
Speaker 1: her brother told her he was leaving. He had caught
Speaker 1: what people called gold fever. Men across the country were
Speaker 1: leaving their families and droves, hoping to strike it rich
Speaker 1: out west. The moment that sparked the gold rush happened
Speaker 1: on January forty eight one. James Wilson Marshall, a carpenter
Speaker 1: from New Jersey, caught a glimpse of something shiny in
Speaker 1: the American River at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Speaker 1: He discovered an abundance of gold flakes. Marshall originally moved
Speaker 1: west to work on a sawmill for John Sutter, who
Speaker 1: set up a colony that would later become Sacramento, and
Speaker 1: the men swore each other to secrecy so that the
Speaker 1: gold would be all theirs. A Sutter had already claimed
Speaker 1: quite a bit of land, enslaving hundreds of Native Americans
Speaker 1: who helped colonize the area. The amount of gold the
Speaker 1: men found made it impossible to hide. Soon, gold miners
Speaker 1: from miles around appeared for their steak in the riches.
Speaker 1: Sam Brannon, a storekeeper in San Francisco, proudly displayed the
Speaker 1: vial of gold had panned from Sutter's creek. Within weeks,
Speaker 1: most of the men in San Francisco converged on the
Speaker 1: settlement to pan for gold, words spread, bringing in people
Speaker 1: from around the world. In December of eighty eight, President
Speaker 1: James Cape Holp announced the California had gold. California's population
Speaker 1: jumped from twenty thousand to over a hundred thousand the
Speaker 1: following year. Most of those heading to the gold mines
Speaker 1: in eight were men, known as the Forty Niners. The
Speaker 1: men left everything behind, including wives and children. In the
Speaker 1: men's absence, women struggled to keep businesses afloat the farms running,
Speaker 1: and raised children alone. Many of the forty Niners found
Speaker 1: the wealth they saw it holding onto It was another matter.
Speaker 1: Businesses charged extra pushing up the cost of living. Many
Speaker 1: lost their fortunes to gambling, drinking, and time spent in
Speaker 1: brothels that San Francisco storekeeper Sam Brannon never went back
Speaker 1: to seek out more gold. Instead, he bought nearly all
Speaker 1: the local supply of mining equipment, then marked it up
Speaker 1: and sold it to miners. His business model inspired the
Speaker 1: saying during a gold rush cell shovels. While Stutter went bankrupt,
Speaker 1: Brannon became the state's first millionaire. Others also made their fortunes,
Speaker 1: including Edmonia's brother Emuel Lewis. It's unclear why sam took
Speaker 1: Edmonia away from her aunts and left her with one,
Speaker 1: Captain S. R. Mills, But Edmonia fell into a deep depression.
Speaker 1: Her parents were dead, her brother abandoned her, and she
Speaker 1: had been taken away from her aunt's and the place
Speaker 1: she called home. Gone were her forests with animals and trees.
Speaker 1: Gone where the fields where she ran and played with
Speaker 1: other children. She was living with a man she didn't
Speaker 1: know in Manhattan, a crowded, dirty city, and though she
Speaker 1: waited for her brother, he never returned home. Samuel headed
Speaker 1: to San Francisco and opened a barbershop while searching for
Speaker 1: his fortune in gold. He made enough to travel to
Speaker 1: Europe and eventually returned to the States, settling in Idaho.
Speaker 1: His business ventures failed, though, and some of his buildings
Speaker 1: caught fire. He moved Montana and opened another barbershop. Fifteen
Speaker 1: years later, he built a home, married and had a son.
Speaker 1: Though he never returned to see his sister, he sent
Speaker 1: money for her housing, food, and schooling, and after four
Speaker 1: years in Manhattan and Monia left to attend the New
Speaker 1: York Central College Upstate, established in eighteen forty nine. The
Speaker 1: school offered black and white students in education. Higher education
Speaker 1: was rare for black people, much less women at the time.
Speaker 1: The school focused on grammar, reading, math, and geography, while
Speaker 1: the male students took additional science, natural history, and astronomy classes.
Speaker 1: The women learned needlework and knitting. Edmonia studied at the
Speaker 1: school from eighteen fifty six to eighteen fifty seven. In
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty nine, she resumed her studies at Oberlin College
Speaker 1: in Ohio. The founders prided themselves on the school's Christian values.
Speaker 1: Like Central College, they accepted students black and white, men
Speaker 1: and women. The school also became the first in the
Speaker 1: country to offer co ed classes. Though many departments offered
Speaker 1: coed learning, most women's studied in the school's ladies department,
Speaker 1: earning a literary degree at the end of four years.
Speaker 1: Edmonia received a well rounded education, but of all her studies,
Speaker 1: she demonstrated a rare talent in her favorite subject art.
Speaker 1: As a woman of color, Edmonia felt at home there.
Speaker 1: Oberlin had strong ties to the abolitionist movement and took
Speaker 1: part in the underground railroad that helped enslaved people escaped
Speaker 1: to Canada. One reverend John Keep and his wife welcomed
Speaker 1: her into their home, and she lived with them from
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty nine until eighteen sixty three. The community also
Speaker 1: reflected the school's ideals. Both black and white residents lived
Speaker 1: and worked alongside each other. But while the school in
Speaker 1: town seemed progressive and somewhat idyllic, black people, Native Americans,
Speaker 1: and women still lacked equality. Politics and contentions surrounding slavery
Speaker 1: led to arguments and other conflicts. Several classmates participated in
Speaker 1: John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry. Brown hoped to start
Speaker 1: a rebellion that would result to freedom for all enslaved people.
Speaker 1: While the uprising failed, it sparked conversation. The tensions on
Speaker 1: both sides grew. Oberlin's leaders feared something terrible would eventually happen.
Speaker 1: They were right. The headlines for February eleventh of eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty two read that two women at the college had
Speaker 1: been poisoned and a suspect was in custody. A month earlier,
Speaker 1: Edmonia had joined classmates Maria Miles and Christina Ennis for
Speaker 1: an unschaperoned slave ride with a few young men. All
Speaker 1: enjoyed the rod despite the bitter cold Afterward, Amnia asked
Speaker 1: the other women to join her for a hot drink.
Speaker 1: The women eagerly accepted. Ammonia poured two glasses of spiced
Speaker 1: wine and handed them to the women. The three sat
Speaker 1: and talked until the glasses were empty. Maria and Christina
Speaker 1: bad Edmonia good night and retired to their rooms. Not
Speaker 1: long afterward, the two became violently ill. The school administration
Speaker 1: sent them home to their parents until they recovered. A
Speaker 1: couple of days later, both women accused Agmonia of lacing
Speaker 1: their drinks with the drug popularly known as Spanish fly.
Speaker 1: Though most often historically used as an aphrodisiac in large doses,
Speaker 1: it's a poison. In retrospect, Agmonia realized that asking them
Speaker 1: to join her and not participating in the drinking had
Speaker 1: made her instantly suspect. No matter how much the reverend
Speaker 1: insisted Agmonia was innocent, she was arrested without any evidence.
Speaker 1: The court and jury found Ammonia not guilty. At first,
Speaker 1: she thought life might go on as it had before,
Speaker 1: but that was before the second incident. Agmonia struggled through
Speaker 1: her studies and was preparing for her final paper when
Speaker 1: professor accused her of theft. The subsequent investigation proved she
Speaker 1: had not stolen the missing art supplies, but innocent or not,
Speaker 1: the controversy around Agmonia too much for the school's reputation.
Speaker 1: Oberlin asked her to leave and not return for the
Speaker 1: false semester. She had worked hard, but Edmonia would not
Speaker 1: finish her degree. Determined nonetheless, to make a career from
Speaker 1: her artistic talents, Agmonia moved to Boston with financial help
Speaker 1: from her brother. She mingled with abolitionists and confided that
Speaker 1: she would love to make fine art. She never told
Speaker 1: anyone how she came to leave Oberlin. One day she
Speaker 1: saw a statue of Benjamin Franklin and thought she could
Speaker 1: learn to make statues too. The three male sculpting tutors
Speaker 1: turned her down. Male sculptors usually learned sculpting by taking
Speaker 1: anatomy classes. First women didn't have that luxury. Finally, she
Speaker 1: found Edward Augustus Brackett, who specialized in creating busts. Oh
Speaker 1: With his mentoring, Edmonia began to make and sell claim medallions,
Speaker 1: and prominent Boston women began to commission her. But it
Speaker 1: was her rendition of Robert Shaw that brought her fame.
Speaker 1: A Shaw, a white man hailing from Massachusetts, had headed
Speaker 1: into this of a war with America's first all black regiment.
Speaker 1: He stood by his men when they were ambushed and
Speaker 1: died with them. Confederate soldiers unceremoniously tossed them into a
Speaker 1: mass grave, and Mania made enough money on creating busts
Speaker 1: that she began setting aside money for her ultimate dream
Speaker 1: to move to Europe and find more inspiration for her art. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: she wanted to help others with the war over, and
Speaker 1: Monia traveled to Richmond to give newly freed black people
Speaker 1: basic educations. By August she had enough money to set sail.
Speaker 1: She chose Florence, Italy, where neoclassical sculpture was popular due
Speaker 1: to the number of marble quarries, and Monia was pleased
Speaker 1: to discover that Italy widely accepted women, artists with color
Speaker 1: and sects were not nearly as controversial. Soon she felt
Speaker 1: right at home with local artists and American expats. In time,
Speaker 1: she traveled to Paris and London for more inspiration before
Speaker 1: returning to Italy and settling in Rome. At the time,
Speaker 1: sculptors often paid stone crafters to help with their statues.
Speaker 1: Admonia locked the resources and did the work herself. She
Speaker 1: created traditional busts of famous and influential people. However, most
Speaker 1: of her work comprised African American and Native American subjects.
Speaker 1: Native American sculptures weren't unheard of, but Admonia's depictions stood out,
Speaker 1: and one of her better known works was a series
Speaker 1: of statues inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellows The Song of Hiawatha.
Speaker 1: Admonias versions of Native Americans possessed a more respectful reality
Speaker 1: than the stereotyped and fantasized versions that her fellow artists created.
Speaker 1: She told stories with her sculptures. In one of her works,
Speaker 1: an African American couple has broken free from their shackles.
Speaker 1: The beauty and depth of emotion in her subjects made
Speaker 1: her very successful. In eighteen seventy she returned to the
Speaker 1: United States for a while. She tried to reunite with
Speaker 1: her brother. Though she made several attempts, he never reciprocated
Speaker 1: the effort. In eighteen seventy three, she traveled to San France,
Speaker 1: Cisco for a major art show, praising the West Coast
Speaker 1: for being much more friendly than the East Coast. The
Speaker 1: show wasn't as profitable as she had hoped, and disillusioned,
Speaker 1: she tried seeing her beloved brother once more. When he
Speaker 1: still wouldn't see her, she returned to Europe. Edmonia would
Speaker 1: never see Samuel again. Back in Rome, she created her
Speaker 1: most famous work, inspired by Cleopatra's legendary suicide, and Monia
Speaker 1: chiseled the queen's image slumped back on her throne, a
Speaker 1: smile on her face as venom from a poisonous snake
Speaker 1: took hold. Her message seemed to say that Cleopatra died
Speaker 1: on her own terms as queen. Edmonia first revealed the
Speaker 1: sculpture during the eighteen seventy six Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, and
Speaker 1: judges were astounded. While some viewers considered the dying queen's
Speaker 1: image ghastly and graphic, others praised it as masterful. The
Speaker 1: statue failed to find a buyer when the expo ended,
Speaker 1: and it went into storage, but a Monia returned to Rome.
Speaker 1: She continued to create more sculptures and inspire other artists,
Speaker 1: and then Edmonia disappeared from history almost Ammonia Lewis died
Speaker 1: in London on September seventeenth of nine seven. She never
Speaker 1: married and had no children. In her will, she requested
Speaker 1: two things, a dark walnut casket and for her death
Speaker 1: notice to appear in the British Roman Catholic publication The Tablet.
Speaker 1: Edmonia faded from history until two women dug into her past,
Speaker 1: biographer Marilyn Richardson and ROBERTA. Bobby Reno, historian in East Greenbush,
Speaker 1: New York, where Edmonia grew up, Richardson tracked down at
Speaker 1: Monia's most famous sculpture, the Death of Cleopatra. It wasn't easy.
Speaker 1: Edmonia left the sculpture in Philadelphia. Richardson first tracked a
Speaker 1: twist saloon in Chicago. After that, it marked a racehorse's
Speaker 1: grave a track. The racetrack eventually fell out of favor
Speaker 1: and was sold to become a golf course. The Cleopatra,
Speaker 1: still on her throne, stood vigil over the changes that
Speaker 1: came and went. The golf course gave way to a
Speaker 1: munition site, which later became a center for bulk mail.
Speaker 1: Through all sorts of weather, neglect and abuse, andedmonious work
Speaker 1: of art. Endured boy scouts attempted to cover the graffiti
Speaker 1: with paint. But finally the sculpture found its way to
Speaker 1: a mall. From there, Richardson managed to find it in
Speaker 1: a storage room. The Forest Park Historical Society rescued the
Speaker 1: sculpture in the nineteen eighties. Ten years later they donated
Speaker 1: it to the Smithsonian. Along the Way another sculpture surface
Speaker 1: of two sleeping infants, simply called Night. Along the Way
Speaker 1: another sculpture surface of two sleeping infants called simply Night.
Speaker 1: The Baltimore Museum of Art purchased the piece at a
Speaker 1: Southeby's auction for a hundred and thirty thousand, seven hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty dollars. Other pieces were sent to the Howard
Speaker 1: University Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum, and the Detroit
Speaker 1: Institute of Arts. The historian Bobby Reno was a devoted
Speaker 1: fan of Ammonia's, though she knew very little about her life,
Speaker 1: In fairness, no one did. Dedicated to finding out more
Speaker 1: about this former Greenbush resident, Reno began searching for Admonia's
Speaker 1: grave site. Eventually, it was found under an unmarked slab.
Speaker 1: Reno restored the grave site and added a simple marker
Speaker 1: per Admonious Will. But Reno and Richardson weren't finished. They
Speaker 1: wanted to do one more thing in honor of Ammonia.
Speaker 1: In Reno sent a request to Oberlin College to write
Speaker 1: a wrong. The college took their request to grant Aedmonia
Speaker 1: Lewis an honorary degree before a committee. Meanwhile, Reno lobbied
Speaker 1: for more public recognition. On January, Ammonia appeared on a
Speaker 1: U S postage stamp honoring her talent and heritage. In April,
Speaker 1: the college finally got back to re Now the committee
Speaker 1: would not grant the request for an honorary degree. Instead,
Speaker 1: Oberlin decided to give it Monia Lewis the full degree
Speaker 1: she had nearly completed a hundred and sixty years ago.
Speaker 1: On June five, Oberlin President Carmen Ambar stood before the
Speaker 1: graduating class and awarded Edmonia Lewis her degree in Ladies Courses.
Speaker 1: Posthumous and Monia, who her aunts and family sometimes called Wildfire,
Speaker 1: had finally received the recognition she had earned all those
Speaker 1: years ago. There's more to this story. Stick around after
Speaker 1: this brief sponsor break to hear all about it. In nine,
Speaker 1: the good times of the Roaring twenties came to a halt.
Speaker 1: The New York stock market crashed, People lost their life savings.
Speaker 1: Businesses failed, leaving what in four workers unemployed. Many had
Speaker 1: to stand in long breadline for rations to feed their families.
Speaker 1: For those struggling to survive, it seemed that no one cared.
Speaker 1: Banks defaulted on mortgages and evicted families. President Hoover believed
Speaker 1: that dead all get through it if people just helped
Speaker 1: one another. Families moved in together. Philanthropy increased with food drives.
Speaker 1: Communities came together to help farmers through a sort of
Speaker 1: collective action that's come to be known as penny auctions.
Speaker 1: After foreclosures, they bid on the houses, farming equipment, and
Speaker 1: livestock the banks had seized for only pennies and returned
Speaker 1: them to the farmers who had supplied their food. But
Speaker 1: it wasn't enough. Neighbors often had no more to give
Speaker 1: than those in need. Without anything left to share, Americans
Speaker 1: turned to the government for assistance, but Hoover remained unmoved.
Speaker 1: Americans who had once lived in apartments and houses now
Speaker 1: lived in makeshift huts made of cardboard, tar, paper, or
Speaker 1: other discarded supplies. Some dug holes in the ground and
Speaker 1: used whatever might count as a roof to keep the
Speaker 1: a now, others took up residence inside water mains and
Speaker 1: under bridges. The settlements became known as Hooverville's. The residents
Speaker 1: referred to the newspapers they used as blankets as Hoover blankets.
Speaker 1: Empty pockets turned inside out were called Hoover flags. When
Speaker 1: people wore out the soles in their shoes, they placed
Speaker 1: Hoover leather, which amounted to pieces of cardboard, into their shoes.
Speaker 1: It's easy to see that the President's reluctance to help
Speaker 1: Americans didn't win him many fans. Typically, Americans looked down
Speaker 1: on those seeking handouts. People thought taking state welfare was
Speaker 1: shameful unless it was someone they knew who had fallen
Speaker 1: on hard times. The general sentiment was that people on
Speaker 1: welfare did little to nothing to help themselves. Droughts in
Speaker 1: the Plain States made the situation worse. Without water, crops,
Speaker 1: animals and people died. Some government officials insisted the situation
Speaker 1: was hardly as dyer as people made it out to be.
Speaker 1: If they didn't see it, then it didn't exist. But
Speaker 1: a group of bographers was about to change that. In
Speaker 1: March of nineteen thirty six, Dorothea Lange passed a sign
Speaker 1: the Long Road in California. Sensing a story, she turned around.
Speaker 1: The handmade sign read pe Pickers Camp. Lange worked as
Speaker 1: a photographer for the Farm Security Administration. Her job was
Speaker 1: to help raise awareness of the American farmer's plight. She
Speaker 1: grabbed her camera equipment and got out of the car.
Speaker 1: The thin, disheveled woman and her children were friendly enough.
Speaker 1: The woman told Lange that she and her children had
Speaker 1: been living on vegetables from a nearby field and whatever
Speaker 1: birds the children managed to catch. A thirty two year
Speaker 1: old Florence Owens. Thompson and her seven children allowed Lange
Speaker 1: to take several photos, including a close up of Thompson's
Speaker 1: tired and desperate face. This was the face of rural America.
Speaker 1: Thompson's portrait came to represent the Great Depression and made
Speaker 1: Lange one of America's top photographers. She had always loved art,
Speaker 1: but especially photography. In nineteen four teen, she had worked
Speaker 1: for the famous Pictorialist movement photographer Arnold Genta. In nineteen seventeen,
Speaker 1: she had studied at the Clarence H. White School of Photography.
Speaker 1: After graduation in nineteen nineteen, she had opened a portrait studio.
Speaker 1: Lang's gift for photography had captured the Farm Security Administration's attention.
Speaker 1: They asked if she and other photographers, predominantly men, could
Speaker 1: document the effects the Great Depression had had on America.
Speaker 1: Between nineteen thirty five and nineteen forty four, Lange and
Speaker 1: the others took eighty thousand photographs of struggling Americans and
Speaker 1: the drought bridden dust Bowl migrant mother. The portrait Lang
Speaker 1: took of Florence and her children spread across the nation. Florence,
Speaker 1: an indigenous woman, had lost her husband in nineteen thirty one.
Speaker 1: Since then she had worked in the fields for minimal
Speaker 1: pay and scraps. Americans called Florence the Madonna of the
Speaker 1: dust Bowl. Without a word, she had described the plight
Speaker 1: of rural farmers. Lange took more heartbreaking photos of malnourished
Speaker 1: children in breadlines and farm workers from all kinds of backgrounds,
Speaker 1: hunched over crops and sparse fields. Her photography captured the
Speaker 1: moments where Americans, regardless of heritage or upbringing, shared compassion.
Speaker 1: Lang went on to say that she strove to create
Speaker 1: photos that created social change. The day after Lang's photo
Speaker 1: of Florence and her children appeared in the San Francisco News.
Speaker 1: The state Relief Administration arrived with food rations. In nineteen forty,
Speaker 1: Lang became the first woman to be awarded a Guggenheim
Speaker 1: Fellowship Grant for her exceptional talent and creativity in the arts.
Speaker 1: Like edmonious Statue of Cleopatra, Lang's art reflected reality. Lang
Speaker 1: died in ninety five, though she is not forgotten. She
Speaker 1: inspired a host of photographers to prioritize humanity in their
Speaker 1: photos and influenced the development of documentary photography. American Shadows
Speaker 1: as host it by Lauren Vogelbaum, this episode was written
Speaker 1: by Michelle Muto, researched by Ali Steed, and produced by
Speaker 1: Miranda Hawkins and Trevor Young, with executive producers Aaron Mankey,
Speaker 1: Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. To learn more about the show,
Speaker 1: visit grim and mil dot com. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts.