#ella watson

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American Gothic aka Government Charwoman, Washington DC, 1942

Photograph shows Farm Security Administration employee Ella Watson standing with mop and broom in front of American flag. 

Photographer: Gordon Parks

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Gordon Parks. American Gothic. Ella Watson, Washington D.C. 1942

[allthedesiredusernamesaretaken]

American Gothic, Washington D.C.

📷 Gordon Parks

From segregated poverty in Kansas for being black to living in Beverly Hills and driving a Rolls-Royce, his life could sound like a fairy tale, but there is nothing further from the truth. He was the first black photographer at the Farm Security Administration and at Life magazine, also the first African American to do fashion photography for Vogue and Glamour.

He had to fight his whole life against racism, discrimination, and abuse. He could have been a doorman or a waiter all his life, as his high school teacher condemned him to be, but he decided that his life would be different, that being black and poor should not be a condemnation. He fought all his life for equal rights in the United States, wrote a dozen books, composed symphonies and concertos; directed films and created an entire film genre; took some of the most memorable photographs in history and received numerous awards and more than 50 honorary doctorates. When talent is added to determination, an unmatched bomb is produced.

[gordonparksphotos]

Gordon Parks

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“American Gothic,” Washington, D.C., 1942. Gordon Parks, Courtesy of the Gordon Parks Foundation

Gordon Parks met Ella Watson in 1942, when he had a Rosenwald fellowship with the Farm Security Administration in Washington, D.C. She was a cleaning woman in the offices there, and he went on to photograph her at work, at home with her family, in her neighborhood, and at St. Martin’s Spiritual Church.

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Gordon Parks, “American Gothic, Washington D.C.” [Ella Watson], 1942,

Gordon Parks first met Ella Watson, who worked on the cleaning crew at the FSA, in the summer of 1942 and captured his famous photograph of her, American Gothic, that August. 

Ella Watson told Parks of her struggles, about her father who was murdered by a lynch mob, her husband shot and killed.  

By his account in a 1964 oral interview, Parks recalled, “I took her into this woman’s office and there was the American flag and I stood her up with her mop hanging down with the American flag hanging down Grant Wood style and did this marvelous portrait.”

I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs. I knew at that point I had to have a camera. -- Gordon Parks 

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Johnnie Lew, owner of the laundry under Ella Watson's* apartment. Washington DC. August 1942. - photo by Gordon Parks, from the New York Times photo-essay article "Empathetic Portraits of a Segregated Nation", published July 18, 2011

*Ella Watson was the subject of Gordon Parks’ iconic photo “American Gothic, 1942” (click link to view). For more information about Ella Watson and how Gordon Parks came to choose her for his iconic photo, click here.

(***Click image or title link to view in high resolution***)

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Gordon Parks. American Gothic. Ella Watson, Washington D.C. 1942