The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of April 25, 2024
Miners' Houses, Vicinity Birmingham, Alabama
1935
(American, 1903–1975)
Image: 12.8 x 21.8 cm (5 1/16 x 8 9/16 in.); Matted: 35.6 x 45.7 cm (14 x 18 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 1991.243
© Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Location: not on view
Description
In 1935 Evans, unemployed and broke, happily accepted work documenting rural and urban poverty for the Farm Security Administration. The modest homes of these miners were far more comfortable and had more conveniences, including electricity, than those of the sharecroppers he would photograph the following summer in Hale County, just 100 miles away. But some of the inhabitants were likely unemployed and receiving government assistance. The Depression ravaged coal mining and textile production, two of the state’s major industries, shuttering half of those companies by 1933. A year later, 40% of Birmingham residents were receiving some form of government aid.- Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996. Reproduced: P. 149
- From Riches to Rags: American Photography in the Depression. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 13-December 31, 2017).
- {{cite web|title=Miners' Houses, Vicinity Birmingham, Alabama|url=false|author=Walker Evans|year=1935|access-date=25 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1991.243