Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art

About this Work

The Farm Security Administration’s vast repository of over 250,000 negatives captured American subcultures, such as the Cajun and Creole communities, which were largely outside of the social mainstram. These descendents of Franch, Spanish, and/or African heritage had maintained a unique mixture of language, food, music, and culture in the southern United States, primarily Louisiana, and the West Indies. [exhibited with 200.XX.1.3, 200.XX.1.261]During the Great Depression, music helped to bring communities together and offered fun, diversion, and emotional support during economic hard times. There was also a growing interest in traditional music, spurred by the efforts of ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax, who collected thousands of field recordings for the Archive of American Folk Song. "Race records," "hillybilly," and "ethnic" music gained popularity.
By the 1940s swing music heralded a move away from the music of America's rural past to the energized sounds of an industrialized urban society. The Farm Security Adminstration (FSA) photogrpahs in this kiosk illustrate some of this trends.(exhibited with 200.XX.1.20, 200.XX.1.238, 200.XX.1.72, 200.XX>8.15, 200.XX.2.39)