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Social Welfare and Visual Politics
Cara Finnegan, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Survey Graphic and the Depression: Efficiency and Expertise Previous < Contents > Next | End Notes
In the pre-Roosevelt days of the Depression Survey Graphic boasted a respectable circulation of about 25,000 paid subscriptions per year, which increased slightly in the later years of the Depression. Throughout the decade the magazine continued to treat a wide variety of social and political issues. In 1933 Survey Graphic published the results of the groundbreaking Payne Fund studies, the pioneering study of the influence of movies on children. Also during Roosevelt's first year in office, Survey Graphic analyzed the potential effects of the repeal of prohibition, studied how college graduates were faring in the Depression, explained how federal relief fit into the history of poor laws in the U. S., noted the increasing importance of realism in art, and chronicled growing anti-Semitism in Germany. Continuing a trend begun with the heart disease issue in the twenties, Survey Graphic devoted many pages in the thirties to health issues, from the cost of medical care to the public health threat of syphilis. Although today we have the impression that in the 1930's Americans' interests turned inward to domestic problems, Survey Graphic did not ignore international issues. An examination of articles published in Survey Graphic from 1933-1940 reveals that roughly twenty percent of essays published during that period focused upon international topics.[ 29] Issues related to urban and industrial areas of the country received the majority of coverage throughout the thirties, continuing a focus of the periodical from its pre-Graphic days. One-fifth to one-fourth of articles published in Survey Graphic focused in some way upon urban and industrial issues, including manufacturing, labor, urban problems and strikes. Beulah Amidon, a longtime reporter for The Survey, worked full time on the labor and industry beat. By contrast, neither the Midmonthly nor Survey Graphic assigned anyone to a beat for rural issues. In fact, the magazine's discussion of rural issues, including farm mechanization, migrant agricultural labor, farm tenancy, rural relief and drought, never amounted to more than ten percent of all coverage from 1933-1940. Coverage of rural issues made up only two percent of Survey Graphic's output in 1933 and peaked briefly at nine percent in 1936, an election year in which the drought in the Great Plains figured prominently in the news. If we factor in Survey Graphic's coverage of general trends in social planning and its extensive analyses of FDR's New Deal proposals, the presence of rural issues in the pages of the journal does increase; however, when compared to other topics such as labor or international issues, a surprisingly low number of articles focused solely upon issues related to rural America. Why so little coverage of rural issues? Part of the answer may be found in the history of the journal itself. Those who founded and edited the Midmonthly and the Graphic were primarily urban progressives and professional social workers who had little knowledge of rural social welfare issues. Since social work was primarily an urban phenomenon, it is only natural that the Midmonthly and the Graphic would focus their efforts there. By focusing upon urban and industrial issues, the editors of the journals devoted their energy to what they knew best. When Survey Graphic did cover rural issues, it usually turned to outside experts for analysis. Not surprisingly, Paul Kellogg devoted many pages of his journal to explanation and evaluation of nearly all aspects of the New Deal. In 1934, for example, nearly a third of the articles published in Survey Graphic focused upon New Deal reform in some way. Key New Deal figures such as Agriculture Secretary Henry Wallace, Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, Interior Secretary Harold Ickes and others regularly contributed stories to the journal. Arthur Morgan, head of the Tennessee Valley Authority, was a particular favorite of Paul Kellogg, who admired the TVA's fidelity to principles of social engineering. Morgan published several long essays on the TVA for Survey Graphic throughout the thirties. Much of Survey Graphic's earliest New Deal coverage reads as optimistic and laudatory. Such infatuation with Roosevelt is not surprising, given that the journal and its predecessors had advocated similar social positions for years. Yet Survey Graphic did not accept everything the New Deal offered uncritically. The magazine's "honeymoon" with the New Deal slowly wore off after 1934, when editors realized that FDR was not quite willing or able to take social experimentation as far as they would have liked. [ 30] Paul Kellogg's major complaint about the New Deal lay in the fact that it "had established the principle that 'what's wrong anywhere is everybody's concern,' but it had not moved on to comprehensive social planning"— save for the much-admired TVA.[ 31] In 1940, Survey Graphic lauded one New Deal project that was also embracing the importance of visual representation: the Farm Security Administration documentary photography project. In that year's April issue, Hartley Howe published an essay called "You Have Seen Their Pictures," which described the groundbreaking government photography project and presented several pages of its most compelling visual images.[ 32] Such praise is not surprising, for in the early years of the FSA project, Survey Graphic had embraced the project's goals and sought to bring its images to public attention. In fact, Survey Graphic was the first non-governmental outlet to publish the FSA's photographs of conditions in rural America. During the thirties and early forties, Survey Graphic routinely used FSA photographs to illustrate stories on migrant labor, farm tenancy, and New Deal relief efforts.[ 33] These images, made by celebrated photographers such as Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, and Russell Lee, served as compelling visual illustrations of the hardships of rural life and served as important visual complements to Survey Graphic's editorial goals.
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