Ella Watson, American Gothic, Washington D.C.

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This portrait, now an icon of pre-Civil Rights era discrimination, was made on the first day of Parks’ assignment as a photographer for the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Parks, shocked by the bigotry he found in the nation’s capital, posed a stoic Ella Watson in a government building she was cleaning. Watson was working for the FSA in order to support three grandchildren and an adopted daughter. Playing off Grant Wood’s American Gothic, a 1930 painting of a dour farm couple standing before their pristine house, the composition makes an ironic statement about how distant the American dream was for African Americans leading up to the Civil Rights era. Despite its critical tone, the photograph ran on the front page of The Washington Post. Parks eventually became the first African-American photographer for LIFE magazine.

Keywords

Broom
Black and White
Women workers
Documentary
Female
African American
Mop
Flags
Civil Rights