SEEDS OF AGRIBUSINESS: GRANT WOOD AND THE VISUAL CULTURE OF GRAIN FARMING, 1862-1957 by Travis Earl Nygard BA, Gustavus Adolphus College, 2002 MA, University of Pittsburgh, 2005 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2009 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Travis Earl Nygard It was defended on December 4, 2009 and approved by Dr. Barbara McCloskey, Associate Professor, History of Art and Architecture Dr. Christopher Drew Armstrong, Assistant Professor, History of Art and Architecture Dr. Ronald J. Zboray, Professor, Communication Dissertation Advisor: Dr. Kirk Savage, Professor, History of Art and Architecture ii Copyright © by Travis Nygard 2009 iii SEEDS OF AGRIBUSINESS: GRANT WOOD AND THE VISUAL CULTURE OF GRAIN FARMING, 1862-1957 Travis Earl Nygard, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2009 This dissertation uses selected works of Grant Wood’s art as a touchtone to investigate a broader visual culture surrounding agriculture in America during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By doing so I argue that Wood engaged with pressing social questions, including the phenomenon now referred to as agribusiness. Although agribusiness is often associated with the Green Revolution of the 1940s and 1950s, its beginning dates to the nineteenth century. Indeed, Wood’s lifetime was an era when land was consolidated, production and distribution were vertically integrated, and breeding became scientifically informed. To access the power dynamics of this transition, I begin each chapter with work by Wood, and then analyze it in conjunction with imagery produced by or for individuals with diverse cultural agendas. This wide range of voices includes government officials, members of socialist farm organizations, newspaper publishers, plant breeders, owners of large and small farms, auction house managers, and university educators. To show precedents for and the legacy of Wood’s work I begin my analysis of visual culture before his birth and end after his death. The dissertation thus begins in 1862—the year that land in the Midwest began to be parceled out for grain farming as small 160- acre homesteads and gargantuan bonanza farms thousands of acres in size. The dissertation ends in 1957—the year that the term agribusiness was coined by the Harvard-based economists John Davis and Ray Goldberg. I take an interdisciplinary approach anchored most fully within the norms of art history, but also engage with strategies from visual, cultural, and agricultural iv studies. My argument, ultimately, is that agribusiness is a cornerstone of modern thinking, and that Grant Wood was not only aware of the experiences, debates, institutions, and theories of agribusiness emerging in his midst but engaged with them in his fine art. More broadly, by using a wide range of imagery, including photography, advertising, penmanship, film stills, crops, cartoons, architecture, and diagrams I show that the way Americans came to understand and accept agribusiness as the basis of their food system was negotiated, in part, through visual materials. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE.............................................................................................................................XXVII 1.0 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ........................................................................ 1 1.1 RATIONALE ....................................................................................................... 2 1.2 AGRICULTURAL AND FOOD HISTORY..................................................... 3 1.3 INTELLECTUAL APPROACH........................................................................ 7 1.4 BROADER SCHOLARSHIP, EMPHASIZING GRANT WOOD............... 11 1.5 ORGANIZATION OF MATERIAL................................................................ 21 2.0 CHAPTER TWO: EXPERIENCING IMAGES OF FARM LABOR.................. 24 2.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 24 2.2 GRANT WOOD’S ARTISTIC MINDSET ..................................................... 26 2.3 EXPERIENCE AS A CRITICAL FRAMEWORK ....................................... 28 2.4 REPRESENTING COLLECTIVE AND WAGE LABOR............................ 32 2.5 DEPICTING LANDSCAPES AS WORKPLACES....................................... 37 2.6 VISUAL PROPAGANDA FOR LARGE FARMS......................................... 47 2.7 PHOTOGRAPHING CASH CROPS .............................................................. 52 2.8 PICTURING FARM EQUIPMENT................................................................ 59 2.9 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................. 70 3.0 CHAPTER THREE: DEBATING WITH IMAGES OF FLOUR MILLING ..... 92 vi 3.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 92 3.2 GRANT WOOD AND RADICAL FARM POLITICS .................................. 94 3.3 RHETORIC AS A CRITICAL FRAMEWORK............................................ 98 3.4 ARGUING WITH POLITICAL CARTOONS............................................. 102 3.5 REPRESENTING FLOUR MILLS............................................................... 111 3.6 POSTURING WITH PENMANSHIP ........................................................... 120 3.7 POLITICIZING HOME DÉCOR.................................................................. 126 3.8 PAINTING BETTY CROCKER ................................................................... 134 3.9 GRANT WOOD’S NONPARTISAN LEAGUE SYMPATHIZERS.......... 148 3.10 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 154 4.0 CHAPTER FOUR: INSTITUTIONALIZING IMAGERY OF CORN ............. 182 4.1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 182 4.2 HENRY AGARD WALLACE’S PORTRAIT.............................................. 184 4.3 GRANT WOOD’S UNDERSTANDING OF CORN.................................... 188 4.4 CORN AS AN EXPRESSIVE MEDIUM...................................................... 190 4.5 CORN BREEDERS AS ARTISTS................................................................. 198 4.6 GRANT WOOD’S CORN ROOMS................................................................ 210 4.7 IMITATION IN HYBRID CORN AESTHETICS....................................... 224 4.8 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 231 5.0 CHAPTER FIVE: THEORIZING THE FARM ECONOMY ............................ 256 5.1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 256 5.2 ECONOMICS AS A CRITICAL FRAMEWORK ...................................... 258 5.3 GRANT WOOD’S FARMER IN A BUSINESS SUIT................................. 266 vii 5.4 DIAGRAMMING THE FARM ECONOMY ............................................... 272 5.5 THREE STAGES OF THE FOOD SYSTEM............................................... 280 5.6 VISUAL ETHICS IN THE EPIC OF WHEAT ............................................. 290 5.7 REBUILDING THE GRAIN TRADE........................................................... 301 5.8 VISUALIZING FARMING IN ACADEMIA............................................... 318 5.9 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 326 6.0 CHAPTER SIX: CODA .......................................................................................... 361 BIBLIOGRAPHY..................................................................................................................... 371 HISTORICAL PERIODICALS...................................................................................... 371 ARCHIVAL COLLECTIONS........................................................................................ 373 BOOKS, ARTICLES, AND WEBSITES ....................................................................... 375 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Grant Wood, Dinner for Threshers, 1934, oil on hardboard, 49.5 x 201.9 cm. Collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. .............................................................. 73 Figure 2. Currier and Ives, Horses in a Thunderstorm, undated. Reilly, Currier and Ives, number 3190. Private collection. ............................................................................................................... 73 Figure 3. W. R. Leigh, Types of Harvest Hands, 1897. White, “The Business of a Wheat Farm,” page 534........................................................................................................................................ 74 Figure 4. Grant Wood, Spring Turning, 1936. Private collection................................................. 74 Figure 5. Grant Wood, Spring Plowing, textile design, tempera on paper, 16” x 38.” Private collection....................................................................................................................................... 75 Figure 6. F. Jay Haynes (?), Harvest Scene on Dalrymple’s Farm, North Dakota, 1893. J.W. Buel, America’s Wonderlands, 1893. ........................................................................................... 75 Figure 7. Page spreads showing geysers paired with a bonanza farm in J.W. Buel’s America’s Wonderlands,