Marion Post Wolcott

Title: Two African-American children and their home located near Wadesboro, North Carolina, US.

Artist: Marion Post Wolcott

Medium: Photography

Year: December, 1938



Give a brief description of the movement, photographer, or term you researched. How are they significant to the history of photography?





Marion Post was a noted photographer who worked for the Farm Security Administration during the Great Depression documenting poverty and deprivation. Born in New Jersey, she was sent to boarding school, spending time at home with her mother in Greenwich Village when not at school. Here she met many artists and musicians and became interested in dance. She studied at The New School.



She trained as a teacher, and went to work in a small town in Massachusetts. Here she saw the reality of the Depression and the problems of the poor. When the school closed she went to Europe to study with her sister Helen. Helen was studying with Trude Fleischmann, a Viennese photographer. Marion showed Flieschmann some of her photographs and was told to stick to photography.



Because of the Nazi attacks on the Jewish population, she and her sister had to return to America for safety. At the New York Photo League she met Ralph Steiner and Paul Strand who encouraged her. Ralph Steiner took her portfolio to show Roy Stryker, head of the Farm Security Administration, and Paul Strand wrote a letter of recommendation. Stryker was impressed by her work and hired her immediately.



Her photographs for the FSA often explore the political aspects of poverty and deprivation. They also often find humor in the situations she encountered. Her work is some of the finest in the extensive archive.



In 1941 she met Lee Wolcott. When she had finished her assignments for the FSA she married him, and later had to fit in her photography around raising a family and a great deal of travelling and living overseas.





Write a short personal reaction to the movement, photographer or term you researched. What is interesting or not interesting about the work.



When I look at her work I want to know what happened to the people she photographed. Where are they at today, for example the kids in the photo would be around 80 years old if they are still around. It would be very interesting to do a follow up photo and interview of some of these people.







Name: Joe Ulwelling