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Courtesy of the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts
The Potato Girl
Courtesy of the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts
Courtesy of the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts
Photograph and Digital Image © Kalamazoo Institute of Arts. Not for reproduction or publication.
On View
On view
Object number1961/2.42

The Potato Girl

Artist (American, Chicago Photo Fellows, 1872 - 1947)
Dateca. 1915
Mediumcarbon print
Dimensionsmat: 20 × 16 in. (50.8 × 40.6 cm)
image (flush): 11 3/8 × 9 1/2 in. (28.9 × 24.1 cm)
Credit LineDirector's Fund
Label TextMarion Post Wolcott’s 1930’s photographs of farms were produced during her work with the Farm Security Administration (FSA), a New Deal agency designed to bring attention to rural communities. The FSA provided necessary aid amidst changing economic conditions, including the farming crisis caused by the Dust Bowl. Wolcott’s focus on tenant farmers, specifically in this image, a child whose malnutrition has caused a preventable bone disorder, publicized the struggles that many rural Americans faced during the Great Depression. Carl Christiansen was a Chicago-based photographer and mailman working in the early twentieth century. Like other photographers of the era, he manually manipulated his photographs to achieve a soft, misty effect intended to help photographs resemble the loose brushwork similar to Impressionism and other, similarly expressive styles. Like Wolcott’s image, his photograph of a young girl working on a potato farm highlights the impact of rural poverty on children, though from a more romantic perspective. [Label Text: For the People: America at 250 Exhibition, June 27 - October 4, 2026]

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