Exhibition Script - Museum on Main Street

The Way We Worked scriptNuma Rousseve, ca. 1936.--National Archives, Harmon Foundation Collection, Kenneth SpacePhotographs of the Activities of Southern Black AmericansThomas interview (2005)--from “Passing on the Legacy” by Ron Bechet in Art / Vision / Voice:Cultural Conversations in Community, Columbia College Chicago &Maryland Institute College of ArtTHE HUMAN VALUE“They laid off some of the fellas they hired last November. Why?Too many machines. Too much production. Ten years ago, if westraightened twelve thousand feet of half-inch or three-quarter-inch stock,it was a good night’s work. Now, we got to straighten forty-five thousand.“Some fellas will try to tell you that these machines make work. They givework to the lads that make ’em. All right. But for every one [worker],[machines] throw ten out of work.”--Joseph Phillips, night shift worker in a Waterbury, Connecticut brassmill in the 1930sMillions of Americans know the pain of losing a job because of a badeconomy, factory closures, or being replaced by a machine. When theGreat Depression hit America in the 1930s, up to 25% of workers losttheir jobs.Unemployed men outside a Depression soup kitchen owned by AlCapone, Chicago, Illinois, February 1931.--National Archives, Records of the U.S. Information AgencyPhillips interview (20 January 1939)--from Federal Writers’ Project interview by Francis Donovan, Libraryof Congress.A LIFE’S CALLING“I never had any sense in making a career out of [photography]. It wasmore a sense of personal commitment . . . . I felt myself more like acipher, a person that can be used for lots of things, and I like that . . . .”--Dorothea Lange, lifelong documentarian who captured some of themost powerful images of mid-century American lifeWorking as an artist, Stella “Texas” Elmendorf Tylor traveled the country.She was born in Texas, went to art school in New York City, worked inIllinois, and exhibited works across America. She worked into her 90s.Stella Elmendorf Tylor, ca. 1910.--Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of PaulVanderbilt41