Socially-Engaged Photography Education: The Social-Aesthetic Discourse Promoted by the New York Photo League Ya'ara Gil-Glazer

The New York Photo League was an activist group of photo-documentarians working in between 1936 and 1951. The group seceded from the radical Workers Film and Photo League established in 1930.i Like many other artists of their generation, they believed in the power of art to bring about social change.ii The League, which was a part of a wider leftist artistic and intellectual milieu in New York during this period, was labeled as radical organization, and in 1947 was blacklisted by the FBI. Four years later, it was forced to cease its activities due to ongoing pressure on its members, which resulted in a massive withdrawal and financial collapse. The initial nucleus of the Photo League was characterized by the predominance of Jewish photographers. Among the later members there were also many who were Jews.iii These were the sons and daughters of working class immigrants, most of them born in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the Bronx or . The League was an intimate, closely-knit group, and their meeting place on East 21st Street was, for some of them, a second home. According to Deborah Dash-Moore, the group was "a type of Jewish organization characteristic of second generation New York Jews," yet the unifying Jewish factor among its members was rarely expressed.iv Socially engaged images taken by Photo League members were exhibited in various public institutions such as community centers and libraries, as well as in their own photography gallery, and were published mainly in class-conscious newspapers such as New Masses, The Daily Worker and PM. During the 1930s, when documentary photography was a new and intriguing term as well as an expanding cultural practice and expression, the Photo League was the only photography school in the United States focusing on documentary photography. Many of the most famous figures in the history of photography, among them , Berenice Abbott, Lewis Hine, Elizabeth McCausland, Beaumont and Nancy Newhall, and Roy Stryker, lectured at the League's meetings and participated in the League's activities. The Photo League's school was a non-profit establishment. Its educators taught basic and documentary photography classes, operated a communal dark-room, and organized public meetings and lectures in which issues concerning photography, and particularly documentary photography, were intensively discussed. In addition, they published a

monthly bulletin called Photo Notes. A significant aspect of their photographic work, writing and pedagogy was the combination of a social message with a modern photographic aesthetic. According to Christopher Burnett, the League's advanced photography classes were early examples of "the modern workshop," influenced by the Bauhaus and by progressive social movements. A major characteristic of such workshops was "education as a laboratory." The League's teachers insisted that the students should study through practice, out in the streets, equipped with their cameras and their own sensitivity, and their works were subsequently discussed in class.v While there was much cooperation between the League's functionaries, it is no exaggeration to state that the photography school and educational ideology were structured by and depended mainly on one figure— Sid (Sidney) Grossman. According to the former League student and teacher, the photographer , the League's approach to photography was essentially Grossman's approach. The photographer Walter Rosenblum, also a student who became a teacher, says that he was "the main motivating force" at the League.vi Grossman, who co-founded the League with Sol Libsohn, conducted an advanced practical documentary course that he and Liebsohn planned together. He also administrated, reviewed, and edited Photo Notes, as well as being the League's executive secretary. In addition to Grossman and Libsohn there was also Aaron Siskind, who led another major documentary group between 1936 and 1940, and others who taught elementary courses. Among the prominent second generation of educators, most of them former students at the League, were Rosenblum and Dan Weiner, but nobody served in this voluntary duty for as long as Grossman, and it seems that none of them was as devoted to it as he was. My post-doctoral research deals with the Photo League's Jewish group in its broader ramifications. The aim of the present paper is to examine and characterize the social- aesthetic discourse promoted by the League through its educational program. Since this discourse essentially consisted of Grossman's influential ideas regarding documentary photography, the discussion focuses essentially on them and on him.

i The WFPL itself was split into two groups: Nykino (1935-1937) and Frontier Films (1936-1942). ii The Farm Security Administration (FSA, formerly RA: Resettlement Administration) was part of the New Deal programs for reviving agriculture. The RA/FSA images of sharecroppers, tenants and day laborers that

appeared frequently in the popular media were intended to call attention to their appalling living conditions, as well as to the government’s efforts on their behalf. iii Among the League's Jewish members were Sidney Grossman, Sol Liebsohn, Aaron Siskind, Sonia Handelman-Meyer, Rebecca Lekoff, Jerome Liebling, Arthur Leipzig, Ida Wyman, Walter Rosenblum, Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin. iv Deborah Dash-Moore, "On City Streets", Contemporary Jewry 28.1 (Dec. 2008) 86. Most Jewish photographers of that generation, according to Alan Trachtenberg, distanced themselves from Jewish religion and tradition. (Alan Trachtenberg, "The Claim of a Jewish Eye", Pakn Treger (spring 2003) 20). v Burnet refers to classes conducted by Grossman and Aaron Siskind (Christopher Burnett, Focal Encyclopedia of Photography: Digital Imaging, Theory and Applications (ed. Michael R. Peres). Focal Press: Oxford, UK, 2007, 217). The League's educational approach was also defined in Photo Notes as progressive. (Mason Klein, "Of Politics and Poetry: The Dilemma of the Photo League", The Radical Camera: New York's Photo League 1936-1951. The Jewish Museum, New York and Yale University ,2011 , 13). vi Elizabeth J. VanArragon, The Photo League: Views of Urban Experience in the 1930s and 1940s. Diss. (The University of Iowa: Iowa City, UMI, 2006) 159, 163.