Russell Lee: American Mining Communities
“He had a broad smile and a friendly manner and it wouldn’t have been hard for him to win people over.” Allan Sherman -writer

Charisma, empathy and respect are key words when photographing people specially if doing portraiture and documentary style work. I guess writer Allan Sherman couldn’t agree more when describing Russell Lee as a people’s person someone, easy going with good moral fiber and respect for human dignity. He said “People simply trust him, and before you know it he is taking pictures which no-one else could possibly have gotten.” His images are a testament to that connection driving our eyes into the subjects lives making us feel part of the family, part of the workforce and part of the town. Writer Pat Beach says “He offers a snapshot biography.” A “snapshot biography” indeed when you look at his imagery, they show a real tight link between the subject in front of the lens and the one behind it. Hence capturing magnificently all the array of emotions between both from composition to composition.

In American Mining Communities Lee takes us into the heart of early 1940s post-depression America documenting the domestic lives of those living and working in the coal mines of Mid-America specially in the area of West Virginia and Kentucky. Lee provides us a very personal look into Appalachian miner’s community, households, workplaces, personal spaces, families and domestic relationships. This collection of photos is part of Lee’s 1940’s report to the U.S. Department of the Interior on Health and Safety in the coal mining industry. Lee’s photos delivered the “cold statistics” and the hard facts of the living situation of the miners at the time. His attention to detail and respect for the common man elevated his work into another realm these are not merely candid shots, these are snapshots of the everyday struggles of the miners and how they are living with “the hand they were dealt and making the most of it”.

A fine example of how personal the photographer gets with the subject is photo 017 it portrays a man bathing in a small tin tub. You can see that the man is naked but it is not being undignified or made fun of. All the contrary the photographer creates a strong composition by capturing the subject dead center instantly iconizing the man without undignyfyying his poverty and living situation or converting him into a stereotype or a mockery. On the other side of the lens the is bathing proudly by keeping his posture erect and straight in a dangerous act of balance. You could infer that he is well aware that he is being watched but he does not seem to care.

Examples 019 and 032 are perfect examples of Lee’s focus on the miner’s current workplace situation. In 019 we can see the faces of the workers as they found out that there is not going to be work tomorrow. One can only start to imagine the metaphoric innuendoes behind Lee’s intent with this picture in particular. If you take this photo out of it’s time; will it still resound and have relevance when compared to the current issues of our time such as the growing unemployment percentage of the US? Lee’s initial intent with this photography at first glance is to document but if you dive deeper you may find simple metaphors in his work that challenge the viewer to ask himself where is the photographer working for the government and where is the artistic photographer that blurred line is what makes this photographs great.

In the end the most important quality of these photographs is the intrinsic power for social change that they carry. The use of these images helped to clean up the coal industry and persuade legislators to pass laws to protect the families and workers of the coal mines. In total Lee made over 4000 images documenting for the Coal Miners Administration and Farm Security Administration (FSA); these negatives are now in the National Archives. The photographs were featured in various publications such as supplements like 1947s A Medical Survey of the Bituminous Coal Industry, and a smaller one entitled The Coal Miner and His Family. About 225 photographs were used to illustrate the final report of the survey team by the Department of the Interior

American Mining Communities is part of Russell Lee’s work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) under the direction of Roy Stryker, head of the Historical Section and the director of photographic projects, who between 1935-44, also commissioned other photographers such as Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein and others to document similar scenarios of the challenges of rural poverty “ to encapsulate the hard times of the depression years” and help Americans look forward with hope for the future. The FSA was one of the New Deal programs created under President Franklin D. Roosevelt to assist poor and destitute farmers during the Dust Bowl and the Depression. This collection and exhibition of photographs is hosted on the web by Amber-Online.com a film & photography collective, incorporating Amber Films, Side Gallery, Side Cinema and Side Café whose work is rooted in social documentary, built around long term engagements with working class and marginalized communities in the North of England. Side acquired these pictures from the Library of Congress and showed them in 1981. The gallery showed Lee’s FSA Pie Town photographs in 1980. The FSA documentation of the American Depression was a major influence on Amber/Side’s documentation of the North of England and perhaps the world.

Please visit the allery insideAmber-Onlineto view the photos mentioned