The forty-fifth annual Thanksgiving dinner for the descendants of the Roy and Nellie Newfarmer family was the highlight of our year. When there are seventy people for dinner you have to be organized. We have carving and serving committees, games and a family quilt everyone sews on. A silent auction pays for the three turkeys. More families should be proud of their heritage. Tri-Valley Area, Northern California

1969–75
(American, b. 1938)
Image: 19 x 24 cm (7 1/2 x 9 7/16 in.); Paper: 20.3 x 25.2 cm (8 x 9 15/16 in.)
This artwork is known to be under copyright.
Location: not on view

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Did You Know?

Visiting the United States in the 1830s, French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville observed that Americans “were forever forming associations.”

Description

Owens’s project Our Kind of People, shot mostly in the 1970s, explored American groups and rituals ranging from the Girl Scouts to Halloween parties in his native Northern California. With club membership declining today in America, the kind of formal and informal associations documented by Owens are now an endangered species.
The forty-fifth annual Thanksgiving dinner for the descendants of the Roy and Nellie Newfarmer family was the highlight of our year. When there are seventy people for dinner you have to be organized. We have carving and serving committees, games and a family quilt everyone sews on. A silent auction pays for the three turkeys. More families should be proud of their heritage. Tri-Valley Area, Northern California

The forty-fifth annual Thanksgiving dinner for the descendants of the Roy and Nellie Newfarmer family was the highlight of our year. When there are seventy people for dinner you have to be organized. We have carving and serving committees, games and a family quilt everyone sews on. A silent auction pays for the three turkeys. More families should be proud of their heritage. Tri-Valley Area, Northern California

1969–75

Bill Owens

(American, b. 1938)
America

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