The Japanese Society for Aesthetics

Aesthetics No.20 (2016): 62-74

FSA photography and the Steichen Collections:
The Family of Man and The Bitter Years in Luxembourg
TAKENAKA Yumi Kim
Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto

Introduction
In the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, two museum spaces with permanent photography
exhibitions opened successively in recent years. Château de Clervaux in Clervaux and
Waassertuerm+Pomhouse in Dudelange. The former is an old castle built in the 12th century,and displays The Family of Man exhibition. It opened in 1994, and was included in the
UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register in 2003. After a large renovation that started in 2010,
it reopened in the summer of 2013 [Fig.1]. Waassertuerm+Pomhouse which means “Water
tower and Pumphouse” in Luxembourg was opened in the fall of 2012 as the annex to Centre
National de L’Audiovisuel (CNA) [Fig.2]. It displays The Bitter Years exhibition in two circulargalleries on the ground floor of the tower and on the water tank above. The unusual museum
architectures are renovated industrial buildings that were part of a steel plant closed in the 1980s.
These two photography exhibitions were originally organized for the Museum of Modern
Art in New York (MoMA) by Edward Steichen who was an established photographer and who
also curated 44 exhibitions as the director of the photography department. The Family of Man
in 1955 was the largest art exhibition at MoMA showing 503 photographs by 273 photographersfrom around the world, and made a record of overnine million visitors by touring 38 countries. On
the other hand, The Bitter Years was Steichen’slast exhibition when he retired from MoMA in1962.

Fig.1 Château de Clervaux in Clervaux,
Photograph by author on July 27, 2013

Fig.2 Waassertuerm+Pomhouse in Dudelange,
Photograph by author on July 27, 2013

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63

The main reason for Luxembourg to conserve and reproduce photography exhibitions of arepresentative art museum in the U.S. — MoMA — is because it is the home country of Steichen,
who immigrated to the U.S. in his infancy. In 1964 and 1967, photo panels of The Family of Man
and of the The Bitter Years exhibition were donated to the government of Luxembourg by MoMA
upon Steichen’s special request[1]. For Luxembourg, Steichen is the only Luxembourger artistof international acclaim. And unlike today, the country did not have financial means to purchaseart collections at the time; thus, these were very valuable gifts from the U.S.
Steichen studied painting and photography in Paris in his youth, and was successful in bothartistic and commercial photography in the U.S. He had a great influence on the artworld andrelated culture. He also played an important role in society. The Family of Man tour around theworld was made possible thanks to strong support from the U.S. Information Agency (USIA),
and it was part of Public Diplomacy during the Cold War era. Donation of the Steichen collection
to Luxembourg also seems part of the Public Diplomacy of the U.S.
Public Diplomacy is “cultural diplomacy” that directly approaches people of other nations
through culture in contrast to “diplomacy” that happens between government officials. This
word was used by a former diplomat, Edmund Gullion, who defined that “It encompasses
dimensions of international relations beyond traditional diplomacy; the cultivation by
governments of public opinion in other countries; the interaction of private groups and interests
in one country with those of another” during the Cold War[2]. When the Cold War ended, some
expected that its necessity would decrease. However, the need of U.S. cultural diplomatic strategy against anti-Americanism was recognized again as became obvious with the tragedy of 9.11.
This paper is intended as a historical discussion of the Steichen Collections in Luxembourgfrom the perspective of Public Diplomacy. First, casting a new light on the so-called FSA
photography, which was produced by an American Government administration, the Farm
Security Administration and originally circulated as propaganda for the New Deal Policy, its
influence on Steichen will be affirmed. Secondly, the investigation of the differences between theoriginal exhibitions and the re-exhibitions in Luxembourg within each historical contexts will
emerge quite different meanings of the exhibition. Thirdly, examining the reception of these
exhibitions, including the criticisms that were addressed to them, as well as the ways in which
the re-exhibitions were made lead us to observe that the Steichen Collections provide goodevidence of the basic difference between Propaganda Art and Public Diplomacy with Art.

1. The FSA photography as propaganda for the New Deal
Steichen’s final exhibition at MoMA was The Bitter Years: Rural America seen by thephotographers of the Farm Security Administration. Steichen repeatedly showed FSA photography in his curations. The Family of Man included seven pieces, and one third of photographs
exhibited in his first exhibition at MoMA, Road to Victory (1941), were FSA photography. He
clearly had special interest in the FSA photography[3].
Farm Security Administration (FSA) is the name of the administrative agency for the New
Deal Policy implemented by Franklin D. Roosevelt in order to rescue rural farmers. During theGreat Depression that started in 1929, farmers were suffering from serious poverty due to the64

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fall of agricultural product prices and also to natural
disasters such as floods, droughts, and large-scale sandstorms, the so-called Dustbowls, that frequently occurredfrom the South to the Midwest. A photography project by
the Department of Information of Resettlement Administration (RA) in order to research for the farm areas and tocreate the record of its activity first began in 1935. Then RA
including the photography project were reorganized into the
FSA of the Department of Agriculture in 1937. Roy E.
Stryker, a social-economist, who was Chief of the photography project, selected photographers that were dispatched
across the U.S., including Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans,
Ben Shahn and other now famous photographers who
Fig.3 Dorothea Lange, Migrant
created many masterpieces of documentary photography
Mother, 1936, FSA-OWI, LC[Fig.3].
USF34-9058-C.
FSA photography encompassed not only farms andfarmers but also natural environment and cities across the U.S., along with people, industries,
societies, and cultures. Since all the negatives were stored in an office in Washington DC it is now
at the Library of Congress site open to the public as a collection of 170,000 photos, and it isextremely valuable as historical documents for the period from the Great Depression to WorldWar II[4].
At the beginning of the project, photographs only accompanied documents and government
publications; however, from 1936, it became available to general magazines such as Survey
Graphic, Times, Fortune, Today, and newspapers. Also in 1936, with the prosperity ofphotography magazines starting with LIFE, Look, U.S. Camera, etc., by 1940, over 200 news
organizations had published these photographs. In addition, many books on the FSA
photography were published, and photography exhibitions were held in art museums[5]. Theirimmense circulation clearly shows the straightforward photographs of farmers in poverty andsuffering. And their images captured American citizens.
On the other hand, the FSA photography was also propaganda for Roosevelt’s administration.
The New Deal Policy made efforts to rescue the unemployed and to revitalize domestic demandthrough large-scale public works, and made radical and socialistic reforms on a wide range ofissues including tax system, banking, labor issues, and social security. Therefore, the Republican
Party and the Conservatives were hostile to New Dealers because they seemed turned to left. The
FSA photography exposed the real images of people left behind in poverty and suffering in order
to convey a message that President Roosevelt would never give up on these people. It aimed togain the public support, and to have the New Deal Policy that required a massive national budget
accepted by the Congress.
However, when the economy rapidly recovered due to the revitalization of military industry
in World War II, the FSA became obsolete. In 1942, the FSA photography project was moved to
the Office of War Information (OWI), and U.S. military propaganda took over. In a climate thatdemanded the image of a “Strong America”, poor and weak images of “Poverty” became

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65

undesirable. Congress even attempted to delete the FSA photography project altogether. All thenegatives and documents were about to be lost forever, but in 1943, it was entrusted to the U.S.
Library of Congress as the FSA collection, thus avoiding this grim fate. The OWI photography
project ended in 1944[6].
In spite its high value as fine art and as record of negative aspects of U.S. history and as theorigin as the Roosevelt’s administration propaganda, the FSA photography’s destiny wasstrongly affected by the change in the political situation, and was nearly forgotten in the postwar economic boom. Neverthless, Steichen solely continued to exhibit the FSA photographyduring the War, and the last photography exhibition he curated at MoMA, The Bitter Years, in
1962 sparked a FSA photography re-evaluation that began in 1960s.

2. Edward Steichen and the FSA photography
Edward J. Steichen was born to a farming family in
Luxembourg in 1879, and immigrated with his wholefamily to Chicago shortly after. At 15, Steichen started towork as an apprentice at a lithograph company, where hebecame involved with illustrations and design, and beganphotography. Shortly after, his photography was noticed
by Alfred Stieglitz: a pioneer of American modern
photography, and Steichen flourished with portraits andlandscapes as a pictorial photographer, which was themainstream mode in artistic photography at the time
[Fig.4]. In 1900, he moved to Paris and London in orderto study paintings and photography. Since then, he
travelled between Europe and the U.S., and in 1902,
established the Photo-Secession with Stieglitz, and was
Fig.4 Edward Steichen, Self-Portrait
involved with exhibitions at Gallery 291.
with Brush and Palette, 1902, inWorld War I brought the first turning point for him.
Todd Brandow & William A. Ewinged., Edward Steichen: Lives in
He broke with Stieglitz, who supported Germany, while
Photography, FEP Editions LLC,
he was a supporter of France. Once the U.S. joined the2007, p.44.
War, he volunteered and joined the U.S. Army Signal
Corps Photographic section, and was later promoted up to lieutenant. After leaving the military,
he abandoned his previous symbolist paintings and pictorialist photography and opened his own
photo studio in New York. He led the expansion of sophisticated modernist photography thatcrosses art and commercial photography in publishing and advertising industries, as well as
fashion magazines such as Vogue and Vanity Fair.
Encounting FSA photography was another turning point for Steichen. Just before turning
60, he announced his retirement from commercial art in 1938. That was when he came acrossabout 70 FSA photographs that were special exhibits at the 1st International Photographic
Exposition held in New York. Though subjects and the photographing method were completely
different from Steichen’s previous photographs, deeply impressed, Steichen unusually featured

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TAKENAKA Yumi Kim

the FSA photography in the 1939 issue of a yearbook of photography: U.S. Camera. He statedthat it was “a series of the most remarkable human documents that were ever rendered in
pictures. But the ‘Art for art’s sake’ boys in the trade were upset, for these documents told stories
and told them with such simple and blunt directness[7].”Furthermore, Steichen discovered potential for a new expression in presentation of the FSA
photography as collective pictures rather than as autonomous individual works reflecting theindividuality of a photographer.
It is not the individual pictures nor the work of individual photographers that make thesepictures so important, but it is the job as a whole as it has been produced by thephotographers as a group that makes it such a unique and outstanding achievement[8].
Since the moment he saw the FSA photographs at the 1st International Photographic Exposition,
he likely had an idea to exhibit “America” to mass audience with a collective photographs: inother words, the idea of The Family of Man[9]. Instead of taking his own photographs, hebecame devoted to directing other photographers and curating photography exhibitions.
As soon as the U.S. joined World War II, despite his advanced age, Steichen volunteered to
the U.S. Army Signal Corps again, and organized a Naval Aviation Photographic unit of 3,000.
Subsequently, in 1942, he held a propaganda photography exhibition for the U.S. military, Road
to Victory, at MoMA in order to explain the necessity of joining World War II to the citizens. The
first half of the exhibition was on ‘America: our home to protect’ through photographs of nature,people, agriculture, and engineering in the U.S. The latter half showed ‘soldiers bravely fighting
in the frontline to protect America, their homeland’. 134 photographs were collected fromgovernment agencies, military, or publications such as Time, LIFE, and so on. One third of thesephotographs were FSA photographs, and he had the support of Roy Stryker in the selection[10].
The exhibition venue allowed for photographic panels to be installed in the space at various
angles, which dynamically guided the visitors’ line of sight in addition to massive photographs
enlarged to fill the whole wall. This design allowed for visitors to move through the exhibition
venue in a certain order. Texts by Carl Sandberg, a poet and Steichen’s brother-in-law,accompanied the photographs, completing a story.
Instead of simply exhibiting photographs, this method developed the installation thatorganizes the whole exhibition space, and it was a prelude to The Family of Man.

3. The Family of Man in 1955
Steichen assumed the position of the director of the Department of Photography at MoMAin 1947, and organized The Family of Man exhibition that commemorated the 25th anniversaryof MoMA. Over 500 photographs taken around the world were exhibited with 32 continuous
themes of humanity from birth, play, work, marriage, conflict, death, and so on [Fig.5].
In the foreward to the catalog, Steichen wrote:[the exhibition] demonstrates that art of photography is a dynamic process of giving form

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67

to ideas and of explaining man to man. It was conceived as a mirror of the universal elements
and emotions in the everydayness of life – as a mirror of the essential oneness of mankind
throughout the world[11].
He attempted to present a universal humanism. At
the same time, by presenting works of 238 photographers from 68 countries regardless of theirfame, it praised the ideal of world peace following
the cessation of World War II. Following the war
photography and mushroom clouds of hydrogenbomb experiments, the climax of the exhibition
were the photographs of the United Nations
Congress and the Charter of the United Nations.
After the national tour, The Family of Man
toured 38 countries with multiple versions as theFig.5 The Family of Man at MoMA, 1955,
in Mary Anne Staniszewski, The Power
U.S. cultural diplomacy by USIA. Based on the largeof Display: A History of Exhibition
scale and the content of the exhibition, it
Installations at the Museum of Modern
demonstrated the superiority and prosperity of theArt, MIT press, 1998, p.243.
U.S. It also verified the fairness of the nation andfreedom of speech by showing the negative side of the U.S. such as poverty, discrimination, andviolence. This strategy was said to be first used by “The Voice of America”, a shortwave
broadcasting for Germany which Roosevelt started in 1942 following in the footstep of BBC in
the U.K.[12], however, it is more likely that this strategy followed FSA photography that visually
exposed poverty in the U.S. under the Great Depression much earlier.
The Family of Man was praised around the world and wildly successful with 9 million
visitors and 3 million catalogs sold. However, there were some criticisms against the contents
and the display method, most prominently by Roland Barthes. After seeing the main exhibitionin Paris in 1957, he pointed out that it involved two stages of mythicization:
first the difference between human morphologies is asserted, exoticism is insistently
stressed […]. Then, from this pluralism, a type of unity is magically produced: man is born,works, laughs and dies everywhere in the same way; […], there is underlying each one an
identical ‘nature’, that their diversity is only formal and does not belie the existence of acommon mould. […] and here is God re-introduced into our Exhibition: the diversity of men
proclaims his power, his richness; the unity of their gestures demonstrates his will[13].
He then, criticized that this mythicization that unfairly confuses in a gestural identity the colonial
worker and the Western worker, and de-historifies work in “an eternal aesthetics of laborious
gestures”, although work is eitirely historified[14]. Subsequently, renowned critics continued
with harsh criticisms such as The Family of Man being a cliché and smugness based on theAmerican middle-class culture, an exploitation of human emotions, and disrespect tophotographers.

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On the other hand, the viewpoint of the general viewers should not be overlooked. In recent
studies on The Family of Man, Monique Berlier suggested that while those critics judged The
Family of Man primarily in terms of its relationship with art and its place in U.S. culture andthen in terms of its relationship with political and social situations, “the general audience paid
almost sole attention to the timeless truths, feelings, and emotions that they found in the imagery
and to which they could relate on a personal basis[15].”
Then how was audience experiencing The Family of Man? According to my personal
experience at Château de Clervaux described below, the interior of the exhibit space is much
more intricate than that of MoMA. There are a large number of steps as well, and near the attic,
there are some galleries where beams are visible. However, experiencing a group of photographswith strong appeal that continue to expand as they change sizes and formats through a spacethat is physically limiting and does not allow foreseeing the spaces ahead overwhelms the viewers,
and creates deep respect toward people they see within the photographs. Given that many
criticisms other than that of Barthes appeared about 20 years after the tour, it is possible thatthese criticisms are not reactions to the exhibition but reflections obtained by looking at thecatalog.
The message from Steichen, a prominent figure in not only art world but also in advertisingand publishing world, to the public was an ideal related on his own social experience, and his
message overlapped with the ideal image of “America”. However, it is important that The Familyof Man provided not only emotional experience to people throughout the world and fascinatedthem, but at the same time, it received various criticisms. It must be noticed that we know that
there were various criticisms against it, because of “the cultivation by governments of public
opinions of others” in a sense that Gullion stated above. Thus we reaffirm that The Family of
Man was successful Public Diplomacy.

4. The Family of Man at Château de Clervaux and the memory of World War II
When panels of photographs of The Family of Man and The Bitter Years were bequeathedfrom MoMA in the 1960s, Luxembourg did not have a facility to store or exhibit those collections,and thus, they were divided and stored in a number of locations. From 1987, it was managed by
the CNA as the Steichen collection, and repairs were made to deteriorated and damaged parts byinviting a restoration team from Italy. The repairs were completed in 1991; however, its opening
at the Château de Clervaux only took place in 1994, after a tour through Toulouse, France in
1992, and Tokyo (Aoyama Bell Commons) in 1993.
It is noteworthy that the nomination proposal by Jean Back, director of CNA, for the
UNESCO Memory of the World Register in 2003, stated the following upon considering thecriticisms by Barthes mentioned above:
we can even endorse the criticism by Roland Barthes; but we must admire the legendary
achievement of this extraordinary American artist for its profound sincerity and the“passionate spirit of devoted love and faith in man” in which it was created[16].

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69

The words “passionate spirit of devoted
love and faith in man” taken from theforeword written by Steichen in The Family of
Man catalog sounds so straightforward andsimple. However, when one actually visits the
Château de Clervaux, one faces a sight thatbeckons for a re-interpretation of the meaningof this quotation from Steichen. When one
climbs up a curvy slope along the wall of thecastle and passes through the castle gate, one
is faced with a building with The Family of
Fig.6 U.S. military tank at Château de Clervaux,
Man banner depicting people’s faces. But, in
Photograph by author on July 27, 2013
front of it, there is a U.S. military tank [Fig.6].
What does this installation of an American tank mean? The inscription on a monument standing
beside the tank says, “This U.S. Sherman M4A3(76) of Company B, 2nd Tank Battalion 9thArmored Division is the only known surviving combat vehicle of the Division. Put out of action
on December 17, 1944 while defending Clervaux here at the gate to the castle. Dedicated by
CEBA in 2003”.
During the end of World War II, there were violent battles between the German occupation
force and the Allied forces. Especially, a fierce battle remembered in history as the “Bataille desArdennes” which includes the “Battle of the Bulge”, that was made into an American war film in
1965, during which the Château de Clervaux was destroyed. Luxembourg, as part of the Allies
excluding the Soviet Union and Poland, had the largest number of victims only second to theNetherlands, and one third of the buildings in the country were damaged[17]. Luxembourg,
despite being an unarmed permanent neutral country was invaded by Germany during bothWorld Wars. Though there were supporters of Germany within the country, when the county was
occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II, as a reaction against the thorough Germanic
policy, patriotic spirit increased and led to independence movements. In response, theoppression by Nazi became increasingly more violent. And in December 1944, at the end of afierce battle between the American and the German armies in the snow, Luxembourg was finally
freed.
The Château de Clervaux was rebuilt after the War, with the town hall, a tourist office andthe Musée de la Bataille des Ardennes that exhibits wartime documents such as weapons andmilitary uniforms. World War II is lingered on the collective memory of the people of
Luxembourg. There are many organizations such as CEBA (Cercle d'Études sur la Bataille desArdennes) that continue to light the torch of the memory, and are involved with memorial events
held every September for the liberation by the U.S. and war victims[18]. In 1994, there werelarge events to commemorate 50 years since the War, and thus, it is likely not a coincidence thatthe opening of The Family of Man at the Château de Clervaux was in the same year. Also thetank was dedicated by CEBA in 2003, the same year of the registration of The Family of Man on
the UNESCO’s Memory of the World.
The American Tank beside the Castle gate also symbolizes the memory of World War II, and70

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to look back at its history. And the words “passionate spirit of devoted love and faith in man” canbe interpreted to the relationship between the U.S. as the liberation army and Luxembourg’strust in them. Therefore, just as The Family of Man was the diplomatic means of the U.S., theexhibition at the Château de Clervaux can also be considered as the diplomatic means of
Luxembourg toward the U.S.[19].

5. The FSA photography in The Bitter Years and people of Luxembourg
As mentioned earlier, The Bitter Years was the last photography exhibition to close
Steichen’s activities at MoMA, and also a trigger for the reevaluation of FSA photography. During
the past-war economic boom, no one looked back on the suffering from the Great Depression in
the U.S. In addition, under the Cold War policy of the Truman administration, McCarthyism
swept through the 1950s with concerns about “threat of communism” overlapping with the“nuclear threat”. The “Red Purge” was aimed at New Dealers that acknowledged the Soviet Union
as a nation and pursued socialistic reform
plan. Under such climate, interests in the
FSA photography, the child of the New Deal
Policy, seems to be also suppressed.
However, Steichen exhibited 208 FSA
photographs with 15 themes in The Bitter
Years in 1962 [Fig.7] which he dedicated to
Stryker, who directed the FSA photography
project[20]. At the same time, Walker Evens’
exhibition was held at MoMA, and thecatalogue of his ealier exhibition American
Photographs in 1938 was reissued. FurtherFig.7 The Bitter Years at MoMA, 1962, in Françoise
more, since Dorothea Lange passed away inPoos ed., The Bitter Years: Edward Steichen and
The Farm Security Administration Photographs,
1965 and Ben Shahn passed away in 1969,
d･a･p, 2012, p.9.
their retrospective exhibitions were held in
various locations, and the momentum for the reevaluation of FSA photography gradually
increased. This is what Steichen stated in the foreword to the catalog:
I BELIEVE it is good at this time to be reminded of those “Bitter Years” and to bring theminto the consciousness of a new generation which has problems of its own, but is largely
unaware of the endurance and fortitude that made the emergence from the Great
Depression one of America’s victorious hours[21].
It was the period of social contradictions, which was hidden in the shadow of the prosperityof America, that erupted as civil-rights movement, feminism movement, and anti-Vietnam war
movement by the New Left. These movements are likely the problems of a new generation that
Steichen meant. Alan Trachtenberg analyzed it as “particularly in the 1960s, when many college
students turned to the 1930s in search of radical heritage. Evans’s sharecroppers and Dorothea

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71

Lang’s migrant workers had made the FSA seem to have mounted a campaign on behalf of thedispossessed[22].”It has been pointed out several times that there is a fundamental commonality between thehumanism of the FSA photography and The Family of Man. However, it also created friction as
seen in the previously mentioned criticism. The Family of Man represented the whole world thatis culturally, politically, and historically complex through the eyes of middle class typified by
LIFE magazine. In other words, The Family of Man could not be “a family album of the earth”.
However, The Bitter Years had a different situation. Stryker himself, and Rexford Tugwell, apractitioner of the New Deal policy as the Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, who chose Stryker
for the FSA photography project were both from a farming family, and were familiar with thesufferings of farmers. Furthermore, Steichen, who emigrated from a farm in Luxembourg, hasbeen known to have continued growing flowers in his farm alongside his photographic activities.
It seems as if their family backgrounds guaranteed that The Bitter Years presented the past of
American farmers to America. Thus, it could be called “the family album of America”.
How about The Bitter Years in Dudelange? How do people of Luxembourg receive the FSA
photography that depicts time, place, and environment quite different from theirs? Daniela Del
Fabbro, the curator of Waassertuerm+Pomhouse, told me that there was fortunately no serious
natural disaster in Luxembourg, but economic conditions only stabilized in the recent years andlife of farmers formerly had been poor. In addition, there are a large number of immigrants in
Luxembourg, which also allowed for people to connect their own immigration history to thefigures of migrant farmers captured by the FSA photography[23].
Looking back to the history of industry in Luxembourg, the steel industry was born after theindustrial revolution; however, agricultural reform did not make progress, for that reason a large
number of farmers emigrated to the U.S. during the late 19th century just like Steichen’s family.
Simultaneously there was a large influx of German and Italian immigrants as steel industry
workers for they were willing to engage in harsh work in mines and ironworks. The steel
company ARBED that led the steel industry of Luxembourg(currently it has gone through a merger and became theworld’s largest ArcelorMittal) had been founded in
Dudelange, and there was a massive steel plant and a slag
heap. The last remnant of this modern industry today is
Waassertuerm+Pomhouse [Fig.8].
Del Fabbro pointed out a group of small houses thatcan be viewed from the top of the tower and said thatfamilies of Italian migrant workers laboring at ARBED
lived there since the early 20th century[24]. After WorldWar II, immigration from Portugal increased rapidly as if
to fill the workforce lost by the war, and even in the present
time when Luxembourg houses central institutions of theFig.8 View from the blast furnace
EU congregate, about half of its population is said to be
toward the city center with thewater tower in the background,immigrants and permanent foreign residents. Luxembourg
1956, Ibid., p.42.
is small but a major country of immigration, and its

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collective memory of immigration may make viewers to feel sympathy with The Bitter Years.

Conclusion
Let me summarize the main points that have been clarified above. The reason why these twocontrasting photographic exhibitions – The Family of Man representing the mightiness ofAmerica and The Bitter Years of suffering America during the Great Depression – are installed
and displayed permanently in Luxembourg relates more to the idea of Public Diplomacy, than to
the fact that their organizer Steichen was an immigrant from Luxembourg. It represents at thesame time U.S. Public Diplomacy to Luxembourg and Luxembourg Public Diplomacy to the U.
S. Further, the exhibitions could be accounted for as propaganda for government policies,
because the FSA photography that had influenced on Steichen was propaganda for the New Deal
policy and Steichen himself was committed to the U.S. military propaganda during World War
II. Taking into account all of those facts, it is adequate to critically conclude them to be
Propaganda Art. For the reason already stated above, the various criticisms of The Family of
Man in 1955 have been succeeded in its studies and in its re-exhibitions. It is possible to say thatthe criticisms were accepted as the “public opinion of others” in the sense of Public Diplomacy
which emphasizes interaction with the opinions with others. On the contrary Propaganda byprinciple exterminates criticisms. The difference between Public Diplomacy and Propaganda Art
becomes to be obvious at this point.
Nonetheless, it is possible to affirm that there was, so to speak, a kind of primary and deep
humanitarian point of view that were shared by the FSA and Steichen at the basis of their motives.
It may be thanks to this primary and deep humanitarianism that the art exhibitions especiallyrelated to historic locations have the function provoking in viewers a certain collective memoryand sympathy across time, locations and situations. The Family of Man is linked to the memoryof World War II in a symbolic location, Château de Clervaux, and The Bitter Years installed in
the water tower of the steel factory is linked to large-scale immigration caused by the modern
industrial revolution. To discuss humanitarianism in art here is beyond the scope of this paper,
yet I am convinced that photography is still the best media in contemporary visual arts to convey
humanity spontaneously and straightforwardly in various forms of display.

EpilogueIn the summer of 2013, an exhibition Jennifer’s Family was held at Pomhouse [Fig.9]. A
German photographer Louisa Marie Summer closely photographed a Puerto Rican immigrantmother living in the suburb of New York City. The mother, Jennifer, was then the same as
Summer, 25 years old. Candid texts by Jennifer and her family members were exhibited along
photographs, and conveyed their everyday lives vividly and their sentiments delicately. The
exhibition presented “the portraits of a family” revealing not only the general problems of the
low-income classes and this family’s own personal difficulties, but also their own dreams for the
future.
Jennifer’s Family is linked to The Family of Man in subject, and as it presents the poverty

FSA photography and the Steichen Collections73

of a family at the bottom of society, it can beconsidered as a documentary work that follows
the tradition of the FSA photography. It shows
us that issues put forward by the Steichen
Collections still exist today, and that they can beshared across nations and times, and that theyshould be. Nevertheless, the approach of
Jennifer’s Family is very different from The
Family of Man that symbolized the worldview
seen from the U.S. and represented its affluenceand power by the massiveness of the exhibition.
There is an absence of privileged position in
Jennifer’s Family in which photographs of a
Puerto Rican mother and her family in the U.S.
Fig.9 Jennifer’s Family at Pomhouse,
Photograph by author on July 27, 2013
taken by a German photographer were being
exhibited in Luxembourg. What fills the absence
are a delicacy generated by the smallness of the exhibition, and an intimacy accompanied withgenerosity. The delicacy and intimacy underlie an attitude of being willing to understandneighbors beyond the differences in race, nationality, and class. Such attitude in Jennifer’s
Family is supposed to a fruit of critical discussions about The Family of Man and The Bitter
Years. Therefore, it seems to be an ideal aspiration of artistic practices nowadays when conflicts
and terrorism occur frequently around the world.

Notes
[1]
[2]
[3]

[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]

Jean Back, “Vintage point: ‘The Bitter Years’ reconsidered”, in Françoise Poos ed., The Bitter Years:
Edward Steichen and The Farm Security Administration Photographs, d･a･p, 2012, p.8.
The Edward R. Murrow Center of Public Diplomacy, “What is Public Diplomacy?” at http://
fletcher.tufts.edu/Murrow/Diplomacy, accessed on October 20, 2015.
Conversely, it was Steichen who introduced the FSA photography into the artworld.
See. Yumi Takenaka, “AMERICA SHASHIN no tanjo: FSA shashin to New York kindai bijutsukan[The Birth of American Photographs: FSA photography and The Museum of Modern Art, New
York]”, Minzoku geijutsu [Ethno-Arts], Kyoto: Daigo Shobo, Vol. 30, 2014, pp.180-187.
Library of Congress, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White
Negatives, at www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/fsa/, accessed on October 20, 2015.
Cara A.Finnegan, Picturing Poverty: Print Culture and FSA Photographs, Smithsonian Books,
2003, pp.53-6.
Jack F. Hurley, Portrait of a decade: Roy Stryker and the Development of Documentary
Photography in the Thirties, Da Capo Press, 1977, p.162.
Edward Steichen, “The FSA photographers”, in U.S. Camera Annual 1939, William Marrow, 1938,
p.43.
Ibid., p.44.
Eric J. Sandeen, Picturing an Exhibition: The Family of Man and 1950s America, Univ. of Mexico
Press, 1995, pp.43-50.

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[10]

[11]
[12]
[13]

[14]
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[16]

[17]
[18]
[19]
[20]

[21]
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[24]

TAKENAKA Yumi Kim

Christopher Philips, “Steichen’s ‘Road to Victory’”, in Public Photographic Spaces: Exhibitions of
Propaganda, from Pressa to The Family of Man, 1928-55, Museu d’Art Contemporani deBarcelona, 2008, p.372.
Edward Steichen, “Introduction by Edward Steichen,” The Family of Man, MoMA, first printed in
1955; renewed in 1983, p.3.
T. Sato, Y. Watanabe, Y. Sibauchi ed., Soft power no media bunkaseisaku [Media Cultur Policy ofSoftpower], Tokyo: Shin-yo-sha, 2012, p.123.
Roland Barthes, “La grande famille des homme,” Mythorogies, Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1957,
pp.195-196.(=Annette Lavers, trans., “The Great Family on Man”, in Mythorogies, New York:
Noonday Press, 1972, pp.100-101.)
Ibid., p.197. (=Ibid., p.102.)
I would like to thank Paul Dumouchel for helpful suggestions.
Monique Berlier, “The Family of Man: Readings of an Exhibition”, in Bonnie Brennen and Hanno
Hardt eds., Picturing the Past: Media, History & Photography, Univ. of Illinois Press, 1999, p.230.
Jean Back, “Memory of the World Register Nomination Proposal” in UNECSO Memory of theWorld, at www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CI/CI/pdf/mow/nomination_forms/Family%20of%20Man%20Nomination%20Form.pdf, accessed on October 20, 2015, p.2.
Gilbert Trausch, Histoire de Luxembourg, Hatire, 1992, p.174.
Ibid., p.176.
Luxembourg doesn't have the armed forces still now, though it has joined North Atlantic Treaty
Organization in 1949 and participated in an international peacekeeping operation.
MoMA held a symposium in connection with The Bitter Years in 1962, and Stryker and three FSA
photographers including Shahn were invited as speakers.
MoMA, PRESS RELEASE ARCHIVES. 2013.10.30, at www.moma.org/docs/press_archives/
3067 /releases /MOMA_1962_0126_122.pdf?2010, accessed on October 20, 2015.
Edward Steichen ed., The Bitter Years, 1935-1941: Rural America as seen by the photographers of
the Farm Security Administration, MoMA, 1962, p.iii.
Alan Trachtenberg, Reading American Photographs: Images as History Mathew Brady to Walker
Evans, Hill and Wang: New York, 1989, p.247.
From interview with Daniela Del Fabbro at Waassertuerm+Pomhouse on July 27, 2013.
I would like to thank her for providing the valuable information.
It is said that 70％ of workers of the steelworks were Italian.
See. Antoinette Lorang, “The Château d’Eau: A Water Tower as Cultural Reservoir” in Poos ed.,op.cit., pp.42-47.

* This paper is a revised version of my Japanese paper published in Hiroshi Okabayashi ed., Culture Mix,
Kyoto:Koyo Shobo, 2014, pp.166-186.