"Public health doctor giving tenant family medicine for malaria, near Columbia, S.C."
Marion Post Wolcott, photographer. Created June, 1939.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection.

This photograph, then, was one of many created under the sponsorship of a government agency that exposed existing inequities and encouraged federal efforts to right them. We may not have much specific information about the photographer herself, her political convictions, or her ideas about society (although we might be able to find this out by doing additional research), but we do know what motivated the agency that employed her.
Was this photograph meant to condemn a “social evil” or was it intended to celebrate efforts to remedy social evils? Consider that question as we continue analyzing this photograph.

Copyright © 1997, 2002 University of Pennsylvania HSS
Revised: 09-Feb-2002