Not on view
Date
1937, printed c. 1970
Classification
Photographs
Medium
Gelatin silver print
Dimensions
Image: 9 11/16 × 13 3/8in. (24.6 × 34 cm) Mount (board): 15 15/16 × 19 7/8in. (40.5 × 50.5 cm)
Accession number
92.58
Credit line
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of Sean Callahan
Rights and reproductions
© Estate of Margaret Bourke-White / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, NY
API
artworks/8061
In January 1937, the swollen banks of the Ohio River flooded Louisville, Kentucky, and its surrounding areas. With one hour’s notice, photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White caught the next plane to Louisville. She photographed the city from makeshift rafts, recording one of the largest natural disasters in American history for Life magazine, where she was a staff photographer. The Louisville Flood shows African-Americans lined up outside a flood relief agency. In striking contrast to their grim faces, the billboard for the National Association of Manufacturers above them depicts a smiling white family of four riding in a car, under a banner reading “World’s Highest Standard of Living. There’s no way like the American Way.” As a powerful depiction of the gap between the propagandist representation of American life and the economic hardship faced by minorities and the poor, Bourke-White’s image has had a long afterlife in the history of photography.
