Clothesline and Smoke Stacks, New York City
Dateca. 1928
Mediumgelatin silver print
DimensionsSight: 2 7/8 x 1 7/8 in. (7.3 x 4.8 cm)
Mat: 20 x 16 in. (50.8 x 40.6 cm)
ClassificationsVisual Works
Credit LineGift of an Anonymous Donor
Object number80.0185.26
DescriptionWalker Evans offers a succinct photographic description of tenements and factories that have always competed for space in Manhattan. With straight-forward simplicity, Evans objectifies the subject matter and strips it of its social implications. During the early part of this century, many immigrant poor divided their lives between hot, dirty, overcrowded housing projects, and the notoriously unsafe factories known as sweatshops, where men, women, and children labored impossibly long hours and under squalid conditions for little pay. He presents a dispassionate, neutral commentary on the mutually exclusive interests of a city that has always prided itself on being both a beacon of opportunity and a spirit of modern industry.
