To The City: Urban Photographs of the New Deal

5. Citizens [Includes Photo Gallery]

 5 CITIZENS A mong the aspirations linked to urban life, perhaps none was more captivating than the opportunity for full participation and citizenship . Immigrants from around the world as well as migrants from rural areas, especially African Americans, came to the cities of the United States drawn by this promise (Figure 5.1). A cigar maker originally from Spain shows his yellowed, creased citizenship paper to an interviewer—then carefully refolds it and places it back in a safe.1 Cities provided a chance to work toward citizenship and ample evidence of democracy in action, and immigrants added to the increasingly cosmopolitan nature of urban life. Chinese families shopped for medicinal herbs next to Italians curing meat; Norwegians paraded in honor of their heritage. “The city is a cluster of ethnic groups,” the New York City guide declared. “Definite foreign colonies exist, but the lines are constantly shifting . . . [and] much that has come to be considered peculiarly American is the direct contribution of these latter-day citizens.”2 Photographs depicting the polyglot character of urban life increased during the war years, as the project was transferred from the FSA to the OWI and cities became the more common setting for government photographers—precisely because of the need to propagandize the American way of democracy at the time of a burgeoning world war. From celebrating cultural roots to demanding workers ’ rights, city residents could take action on contemporary issues and connect to the world beyond the nation. 100 C H A P T E R F I V E During the era of the Great Depression people became more passionate about politics, and the country leaned further toward socialism and communism than at any other point in the nation’s history (Figure 5.2). The economic plight of many prompted a call for change—a revolution that arose in the streets and factories across the country—a demand for recognition of the dire economic conditions and an insistence upon more government support. Stryker directed FSA photographers to stay out of the political arena—seeing the mission of the project as far beyond the political contingencies of the moment—but photographers occasionally caught the action nonetheless. Strikes occurred in Chicago as United Office and Professional Workers protested poor pay and demanded union recognition (Figure 5.3); workers in the New Deal agencies of the Works Progress Administration coordinated nationwide protests in February 1939 to denounce dramatic cuts in appropriations (Figure 5.4); people signed petitions to decry the forced relocation of migrants into labor camps (Figure 5.5); and a “South Side Action Committee” sign in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago, appearing in a kind of bubble on a window, conveyed the ubiquity of action and community that was commonplace in numerous organizations trying to stem the calamitous times (Figure 5.6). As war began, political deeds took on more specific aims to support the effort—for example, buying war bonds or donating “typewriters for victory” from Hollywood studios to the armed services (Figures 5.7, 5.8). Perhaps the most significant and striking action pictured is the fight of African Americans for full inclusion in U.S. society. The quiet dignity and effort of this struggle comes across most poignantly in photographs of African Americans in government roles—predominantly as police officers and members of the military (Figures 5.9–5.11). Such images stand in contrast to a series of pictures documenting a 1942 riot in the federally subsidized Sojourner Truth housing project in Detroit (Figures 5.12, 5.13). The housing project had caused consternation from its beginning—when it was first announced that the development would be for African American families in response to the growing housing crisis in the area created by the influx of African American workers to the defense industry. The surrounding white community raised enough outrage that the decision regarding residence preferences was reversed, then reversed again, conferring final designation as being a project for African Americans. Occurring at the time the first families moved in, the riot exposed the blatant racism that still segregated both social and spatial relations. Signs declared “We want white tenants in our white community.” These protests presaged the far more devastating ones that would rock Detroit the following year and would set the battle lines for the civil rights movement of the years to come. C I T I Z E N S 101 The photographs of racial neutrality, if not reconciliation, are that much more striking in...