Wolcott Photos from Lost Florida Summers Heat up Heritage Monthly Online Photographs Auction August 21st.
Before Disney had the World, before Miami had Vice, before condos, before NASA rockets, Florida of the 1930s was about sunshine and the meagre living to be made in orange groves, timber, fishing, and nascent beach enclaves.
A group of five photographs by Farm Securities Administration artist Marion Post Wolcott document this vanished era in the 1930s and 1940s when Florida’s population was sparse and the rule-of-law, like the landscape, still wild. Bid on Marion Post Wolcott photos – A Group of Five Photographs of Florida (5 works), 1939-1941. Bidding ends August 21, 2019.
After documenting New England, Appalachia, Tidewater Carolina, Wolcott headed to Florida where she did find a little trouble. “I was trying to take some pictures…of the racetrack and of people in the stands and I was trying to take some in some of the gambling places, and they did take my camera. I got it back again but they took the film and told me to get out and stay out, and I didn’t think that particularly was because I was a woman; they were annoyed that I felt I could get away with it because I was a woman, which was exactly what I was trying to do…” Wolcott recalled in a 1965 interview for the Smithsonian institution.
Florida’s remote “end of the world” aura was captured with Wolcott’s Roliflex camera, equipment she preferred because the view finder gave her immediate engagement with her subject. Wolcott portraits show Floridians taking pleasure where they find it and just getting by. As evidenced by her race track incident, Wolcott always avoided subjects from tour guides and booster clubs. Her titles expand the true Florida stories we already see:
- Oldest child of migrant packinghouse worker’s family from Tennessee fixing supper (Her mother and father both work during the day and sometimes until two and three in the morning, leaving the children alone) Belle Glade, Florida, 1939
- Construction workers drinking beer in Soldier’s Joy Café near Camp Blanding, Starke, Florida, 1940
- Finnish construction worker from New York drinking beer while spending his leisure time in a café near Camp Blanding (He was unable to work because of heavy rains) Starke, Florida, 1940;
- Guests of Sarasota trailer park, Sarasota, Florida (picnicking at the beach) 1941
- Guests of Sarasota trailer park, Sarasota, Florida, (enjoying the sun and sea breeze at the beach) 1941
Bid on Marion Post Wolcott photos – don’t miss your chance to own these historic photographs.