Photograph of a Little Boy During World War 2

This piece of work from Soth is comparable to Arthur Rothstein, who was born July 17th, 1915. He was one of leading founders of photography in The Great Depression period in the 1930s. Rothstein captured many photographs of this historic era; his photographs are incredibly moving to anyone who views them. Rothstein describes his Depression photographs as him wanting to educate others on the way that other people live their day to day lives (“Photography and the Great Depression,” n.d.). Rothstein originally wanted to go to medical school but stated that he really enjoyed photography. Rothstein studied photography in Columbia College, Columbia, and did this whilst still in high school. In the summer of 1935 Stryker hired Rothstein to work in the Historical Section of the Resettlement Administration. Rothstein continued with the agency after it became the Farm Security Administration in 1937 and left his job in 1940 to take on a position with Look. During the World War Two, Rothstein worked for the Office of War Information, with the end of the war Rothstein returned back to Look, remaining with the magazine until it ceased publication in 1971. The next step in his year was to go and work for Parade, where he held a position up until his death in 1985.

Rothstein’s only job was to take photographs. His agenda was for the photographs to reinforce the social engineering ideals that were set forth by The New Deal. Essentially propaganda was used to convince the public that the government at the time needed to desperately use the money they have to help those who were suffering. This is one of Rothstein’s images from his series on the dust storms that happened in the period of The Great Depression. This image consists of a three-year old boy named Darrell Coble and was shot at the time one of the dust storms was happening in Cimarron County, Oklahoma, in April 1936. This came to symbolize the impact that dust could have on a person. 

Darrell lived in the same country for all of his life. In 1977, he farmed over 190 acres but still needed to work as a propane truck driver to make the money for his family. At the time of shooting this image and being surrounded in the storm Rothstein quote, said that he thought that the world was ‘coming to an end’ because of how much dust was in the air polluting the Earth and practically killing lots of innocent people. It also destroyed crops which at the time was not good due to The Depression and with not having much source of food income from anyone, or for anyone.

The main focus within the image is of the father and his two sons with the house in the background. This picture is in black and white and the waves of dust are noted on the ground within the image. The sky has turned black and somewhat dark and looks dry.