BROKEN GROUND: PLOWING and AMERICA's CULTURAL LANDSCAPE in the 1930S by Copyright 2011 Kate M. Meyer Submitted to the Graduat
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BROKEN GROUND: PLOWING AND AMERICA’S CULTURAL LANDSCAPE IN THE 1930s By Copyright 2011 Kate M. Meyer Submitted to the graduate degree program in the Kress Foundation Department of Art History and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ________________________________ Chairperson, Charles Eldredge ________________________________ David Cateforis ________________________________ James R. Shortridge ________________________________ Stephen Goddard ________________________________ Elizabeth Schultz Date Defended: 8 April 2011 The Dissertation Committee for Kate M. Meyer certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: BROKEN GROUND: PLOWING AND AMERICA’S CULTURAL LANDSCAPE IN THE 1930s ________________________________ Chairperson, Charles Eldredge Date approved: 8 April 2011 ii Abstract This dissertation considers the significance of images related to plowing from the 1930s and their connection to humanity’s relationship with the land. Environmental history, agricultural history, and the cultural geography of the plains are used in the analysis of these images to suggest the pervasiveness of the plow as a cultural symbol of man’s relationship to the earth. My investigation begins with a chapter devoted to a chronological survey of European and American art depicting agricultural landscape imagery. My second chapter considers Grant Wood’s 1931 painting Fall Plowing, a depiction of a steel walking plow, to focus on the function, history, and impact of the implement itself. The next two chapters focus on artistic products of the Dust Bowl that expose problems inherent in American treatment of the land. The third chapter examines Pare Lorentz’s 1936 documentary film The Plow that Broke the Plains, which charts a history of soil exploitation. Alexandre Hogue’s Mother Earth Laid Bare from 1938 and Crucified Land from 1939, the subjects of my fourth chapter, respond to the Dust Bowl through landscapes that have been ravished and sacrificed as a consequence of man’s exploitative tendencies. My fifth chapter considers artists who identified and advocated practical solutions to the agricultural crisis. This tendency is best demonstrated by John Steuart Curry’s work as artist-in-residence for the College of Agriculture at the University of Wisconsin. This investigation of human cultural engagement with the landscape concludes with an epilogue that contemplates the ways in which artists have explored the earth as a subject and medium amidst increasingly intensive systems of agriculture since the 1930s. iii Acknowledgements This dissertation has been guided and aided by countless individuals. My advisor, Charles Eldredge, has tirelessly read innumerable drafts and provided encouragement that kept me going. I also deeply appreciate the feedback provided by the rest of my committee: David Cateforis, Pete Shortridge, Steve Goddard, and Beth Schultz. My research draws additional influence from interactions with other faculty at the University of Kansas (KU), including Don Worster, the late Lloyd Sponholtz, and the Art History Department. My professional career and this dissertation have also been indelibly shaped by the collections and staff of two museums: the Beach Museum of Art at Kansas State University and the Spencer Museum of Art at KU. I further appreciate the assistance provided by Ron Michael at the Birger Sandzén Memorial Gallery in Lindsborg and Maria Saffiotti Dale at the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison. I want to thank my friends Ashley Elston, Lara Kuykendall, Madeline Rislow, and Debra Thimmesch for their support as we navigated the dissertation writing process together. Jeff Cary, Sorcha Hyland, and Meredith Moore read individual chapters for me and provided terrific feedback. Tera Lee Hedrick read multiple chapters and constantly helped me talk out my ideas. Special thanks goes to Brent Jackson for reading the entire dissertation and providing the kind of feedback only someone who has earned the nickname “Mr. Kansas” could. One reason I have always loved Kansas and the Midwest is that it is riddled with members of my family. I draw strength from these familial roots. My parents, Chuck and Susy; my siblings, Anna and Casey; my grandparents, Charlie and Bert; and my many aunts, uncles, and cousins have nurtured in me a desire to care about my homeland by steeping myself in its rich history. Their support means everything to me. iv Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1. Possession of the Soil: Land Use and Landscape ...................................................... 11 Chapter 2. Starting From Scratch: The Plow, Grant Wood, and Art of the 1930s ....................... 35 Chapter 3. Sermons in the Soil: The Plow That Broke the Plains ............................................... 65 Chapter 4. “The Land’s Going Out From Us:” Alexandre Hogue and Eroded America.............. 95 Chapter 5. Steward-in-Residence: John Steuart Curry and Soil Conservation .......................... 124 Epilogue: Marks on the Land .................................................................................................. 152 v Figure List This list cites the images and objects referenced in this dissertation. Due to copyright restrictions, these images will not be reproduced in the electronic publication. Fig. 1. The Great Seal of the State of Kansas. Fig. 2. Ambrogio Lorenzetti (Italian, circa 1290-1348), The Good Countryside, 1337-40, from The Good City, fresco, Palazzo Pubblico of Siena. Fig. 3. Detail of plowing scene from Lorenzetti’s The Good City. Fig. 4. Limbourg Brothers (Dutch, active in France 1385-1416), Les très riches heures du Duc de Berry: Mars (March), 1412-16, illumination on vellum, Musée Condé, Chantilly. Fig. 5. Hans Holbein the Younger (German, circa 1497-1543), The Ploughman (Death and Everyman), 1523-26, published 1538, from The Dance of Death, woodcut, Cleveland Museum of Art. Fig. 6. Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Belgian, 1525-1569), Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, 1558, oil on canvas, Musee Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels. Fig. 7. Jan van Goyen (Dutch, 1596-1656), Landscape with Dunes, 1647, oil on panel, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College. Fig. 8. William Gilpin (English, 1724-1804), Scene Without Picturesque Adornment, 1792, etching and aquatint. Fig. 9. John Constable (English, 1776-1837), A Ploughing Scene in Suffolk (A Summerland), 1814, oil on canvas, Private Collection. Fig. 10. Käthe Kollwitz (German, 1867-1945), Die Pfluger (The Ploughmen), 1906, from Bauernkrieg (The Peasants' War), etching and aquatint, Spencer Museum of Art, The University of Kansas. Fig. 11. Jan Mostaert (Dutch, circa 1475-1555/6), West Indian Landscape, circa 1542, oil on oak panel, Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem. Fig. 12. Ralph Earl (American, 1751-1801), Looking East from Denny Hill, 1800, oil on canvas, Worcester Art Museum. Fig. 13. Thomas Cole (American, 1801-1848), View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm or The Oxbow, 1836, oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art. vi Fig. 14. François-André Vincent (French, 1746-1816), The Lesson of Plowing, 1798, oil on canvas, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux, France. Fig. 15. Frances Palmer (American, 1812-1876), American Farm Scene: Spring, 1869, hand- colored lithograph, published by Currier & Ives. Fig. 16. Jean-Antoine Houdon (French, 1741-1828), Statue of George Washington, 1785-1788, marble, Virginia State Capitol. Fig. 17. John Gast (American, active 1870s), American Progress, 1872, oil on canvas, Autry Museum of Western Heritage, Los Angeles. Fig. 18. McCormick Reaper Company,“Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way” with McCormick Reapers in the Van, circa 1890-1900, lithograph. Fig. 19. George Catlin (American, 1796-1872), Nishnabottana Bluffs, Upper Missouri, 1832, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum. Fig. 20. Henry Worrall (American, 1825-1902), Drouthy Kansas, 1878, oil on canvas, Kansas State Historical Society. Fig. 21. F. M. (Francis Marion) Steele (American, 1866-1936), A Reeves Steam Tractor Turning Virgin Sod, between 1891-1912, photograph, Kansas State Historical Society. Fig. 22. Grant Wood [Designer] (American, 1891-1942), Breaking the Prairie Sod (detail), 1935-37, oil on canvas, Iowa State University. Fig. 23. Grant Wood [Designer], When Tillage Begins Other Arts Follow (Engineering), 1934, oil on canvas, Iowa State University. Fig. 24. Sallie Cover (American, active 1880s-1890s), The Homestead of Ellsworth Ball, 1880s, oil on canvas, Nebraska State Historical Society. Fig. 25. Currier & Ives, publishers, The Western Farmers Home, 1871, hand-colored lithograph. Fig. 26. Theodore Davis (American, 1840-1894), Farming in the Great West – The “Burr Oak” Farm, Illinois, Comprising Sixty-Five Square Miles, 1871, from Harper’s Weekly Magazine 15 (23 September 1871), wood engraving. Fig. 27. Solomon D. Butcher (American, 1856-1927), Using all the farm for crops - planting corn up to the front door. Custer County, Nebraska, 1888, photograph, Nebraska State Historical Society. Fig. 28. Grant Wood, Fall Plowing, 1931, oil on canvas, The John Deere Collection, Moline, IL. Fig. 29. Egyptian scratch plow pulled by oxen, circa 2000 BCE, wooden model from tomb. vii Fig. 30. Moldboard plow, diagram from Dry-Farming; a System of Agriculture for Countries Under a Low Rainfall by John