For me, the thread that runs through all these pictures bar one is a sense of order, organisation, and even relative comfort. They seem to have been carefully set up, stage-managed to the point of looking sanitised. Could there have been an element of propaganda at work here? The one that seems to speak true, and is a little horrifying, is the one from Randall's Island.
There definitely could have been some propaganda at work. As I understand it, these photographs were produced by the government, not muckraking photographers like Jacob Riis. The same is true of the description of the almshouse in the manual of Westchester county. It is a very idealized vision of what an almshouse should be like.
For me, the thread that runs through all these pictures bar one is a sense of order, organisation, and even relative comfort. They seem to have been carefully set up, stage-managed to the point of looking sanitised. Could there have been an element of propaganda at work here? The one that seems to speak true, and is a little horrifying, is the one from Randall's Island.
ReplyDeleteThere definitely could have been some propaganda at work. As I understand it, these photographs were produced by the government, not muckraking photographers like Jacob Riis. The same is true of the description of the almshouse in the manual of Westchester county. It is a very idealized vision of what an almshouse should be like.
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