At the Lathe, Hammer & Sickle Factory, Moscow
Print
Argus Press
American
At the Lathe, Hammer & Sickle Factory, Moscow
ca. 1932
Rotogravure
Image: 13 × 8 7/8 in. (33 × 22.5 cm)
Paper: 20 × 14 in. (50.8 × 35.6 cm)
Museum accession by exchange
1973.0038.0001
Inscriptions Printed in black ink on recto, BC: AT THE LATHE \ "HAMMER & SICKLE" FACTORY: MOSCOW
TextEarly in her career, Margaret Bourke-White focused her lens on American industry, creating images that celebrated modern machinery and contemporary laborers. Fortune magazine hired her as its first staff photographer in 1929, and the following year, she became the first foreign photographer allowed into the Soviet Union, where she traveled on assignment to document Stalin’s Five-Year Plan. The driving force of Bourke-White’s interest was not political, but rather a desire to witness the developing nation. In this photograph, Bourke-White emphasizes the intimate relationship between this factory worker and her machine, foregrounding the new working class composed of women in addition to men.
—Label text, History of Photography [Rotation 15]
—Label text, History of Photography [Rotation 15]
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