IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB951938638

Deep Tunnels and Burning Flues: The Unexpected Political Drama in 1930s Industrial Production Prints (2002)

Helen Langa (Author)

IA. The Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology
Volume: 28
Issue: 1
Pages: 43-58

URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40947143

Publication Date: 2002
Edition Details: THEME ISSUE: IA IN ART
Language: English

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Labor and laborers Buildings, Industrial Technology and art Coal and coal mining Industrial archaeology Lithography 20th century United States

During the 1930s, printmakers in New York City created numerous images of industrial sites, particularly in coal mining and steel producing communities. Although most of the artists had leftist sympathies, their works ranged from early, obvious critiques of labor exploitation to seemingly affirmative scenes of cooperative workers and thriving industrial production at the end of the decade. These prints have often been praised as recording the centrality of industrial development during the Depression decade. This article suggests that to fully understand such images, they must be read more carefully in relation to current sociohistorical developments, a process that will reveal the deeply politicized meanings they could have carried for contemporary viewers.

...More

Associated with

Article Betsy Fahlman (2002) Introduction: The Art of American Industry. IA. The Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology (pp. 5-10). unapi

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB951938638/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Helena E. Wright; (1986)
The Image Makers: The Role of the Graphic Arts in Industrialization (/isis/citation/CBB357968327/)

Article Anne Cannon Palumbo; (1986)
The Cathedral and the Factory: The Transformation of Work in the Art of Joseph Pennell (/isis/citation/CBB499370698/)

Article Matthew W. Roth; (2000)
IA and the 20th Century City: Who Will Love the Alameda Corridor? (/isis/citation/CBB752044474/)

Article Charles A. Parrott; (2014)
The Weave Sheds of New Bedford and their Place in American Industrial Architecture (/isis/citation/CBB571734857/)

Article Richard E. Greenwood; (1999)
Condos, Photos, and Singing Bridges: IA in the State Historic Preservation Offices (/isis/citation/CBB677082382/)

Article Amy Slaton; (1996)
Aesthetics of a Modern Industry: Buildings of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad's Scranton Yards (/isis/citation/CBB628277884/)

Article Charles K. Hyde; (1996)
Assembly-Line Architecture: Albert Kahn and the Evolution of the U.S. Auto Factory, 1905-1940 (/isis/citation/CBB618737316/)

Article David H. Shayt; (1993)
Elephant under Glass: The Piano Key Bleach House of Deep River, Connecticut (/isis/citation/CBB547758541/)

Article John H. Kopmeier; (2008)
From Mayville to Milwaukee: The Visual Culture of the Iron and Steel Industry in Southeastern Wisconsin (/isis/citation/CBB079353696/)

Article Laurence F. Gross; (1981)
The Importance of Research Outside the Library: Watkins Mill, A Case Study (/isis/citation/CBB046504584/)

Book Pursell, Carroll W.; (2005)
Companion to American technology (/isis/citation/CBB001180187/)

Article James R. Kieselburg; (2008)
Midwestern Images of Labor: Wisconsin Artists and Their Portrayal of Industry (/isis/citation/CBB336492281/)

Article Melissa Dabakis; (1986)
The Individual vs. the Collective: Images of the American Worker in the 1920s (/isis/citation/CBB041164844/)

Article David B. Landon; Timothy A. Tumberg; (1996)
Archeological Perspectives on the Diffusion of Technology: An Example from the Ohio Trap Rock Mine Site (/isis/citation/CBB831006428/)

Article Sara E. Wermiel; (2001)
America's 19th-Century British-Style Fireproof Factories (/isis/citation/CBB998530351/)

Article Dennis E. Howe; (2007)
An Archaeological Survey of the Whiteport Cement Works (/isis/citation/CBB105487275/)

Article T. Allan Comp; (1975)
The Tooele Copper and Lead Smelter (/isis/citation/CBB759489580/)

Article Susan K. Appel; (1990)
Artificial Refrigeration and the Architecture of 19th-century American Breweries (/isis/citation/CBB820906037/)

Article Robert W. Passfield; (1991)
Industrial Heritage Commemoration in the Canadian Parks Service: Part II (/isis/citation/CBB334106084/)

Article Robert A. Howard; (1975)
Black Powder Manufacture (/isis/citation/CBB203794322/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}