Friday, 10 September 2010

John Vachon: Migrants, Michigan


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Image, Source: digital file from original neg.

Automobile of migrant cherry pickers

Image, Source: intermediary roll film

Wife of migrant fruit picker

Image, Source: digital file from original neg.

Wife of migrant fruit worker

Image, Source: intermediary roll film

Migrant fruit workers during slack season in between cherries and berries

Image, Source: intermediary roll film

Fruit tramp

Image, Source: intermediary roll film

Old barn used as bunkhouse for migrant fruit pickers from the South (this grower employs only unmarried Negroes)

Image, Source: intermediary roll film

Camp of migrant fruit workers in field on outskirts of town

Image, Source: intermediary roll film

Camp of migrant fruit workers

Image, Source: intermediary roll film

Family of migrant fruit workers camped along railroad tracks

Image, Source: digital file from intermediary roll film

Boy picking strawberries

Image, Source: intermediary roll film

Picking strawberries

Image, Source: digital file from intermediary roll film

Strawberry picker

Image, Source: intermediary roll film

Young strawberry picker

Image, Source: b&w film copy neg. of print

Migrant strawberry picker

Image, Source: digital file from intermediary roll film

Children of migrant cherry pickers

Image, Source: digital file from intermediary roll film

Child of migrant cherry pickers

Image, Source: digital file from intermediary roll film

Child of migrant berry pickers

Image, Source: digital file from intermediary roll film

Migrant farm workers

Image, Source: intermediary roll film

Family of migratory workers from Texas in roadside camp

Image, Source: digital file from intermediary roll film

Migrant woman from Arkansas in roadside camp

Image, Source: digital file from intermediary roll film

Migrant woman from Arkansas in roadside camp

Image, Source: digital file from intermediary roll film

Migrant child from Arkansas in roadside camp

Image, Source: intermediary roll film

Cabins rented for one dollar and seventy-five cents a week by migratory fruit pickers and packing house workers


Can I see another's woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another's grief,
And not seek for kind relief?

William Blake: On Another's Sorrow, from Songs of Innocence, 1789


Photos by John Vachon, Berrien County, Michigan, July 1940 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
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3 comments:

  1. gamefaced10 September 2010 at 08:09

    its like time makes ours a whole different planet but always the same species. same grief- different scenes.

    ReplyDelete
  2. u.v.ray.10 September 2010 at 08:25

    Portrait photography always makes me think of loss. It is just moment frozen in time.

    In light of what we were saying the other day, Tom, did you know that Thomas Guinzburg died earlier today?

    Of course, I am presuming you knew him quite well.

    ReplyDelete
  3. TC11 September 2010 at 02:07

    gamefaced and Ray,

    Amen, amen.

    Same species, same grief, loss upon loss, each frozen in time, the planet going on somehow, more or less regardless.

    (By the by Ray, my ten years with the Paris Review were voluntary absentee labor, from England, France, California... somewhat on sufferance, one might say. Mr. Guinzburg is not to be blamed. At any rate one hopes his passing was peaceful, and is encouraged to think it might have been, if only by the report that he was listening to a golf tournament at the time the angel arrived.)

    ReplyDelete