Mosquito Crossing, GA [Greene County]Photo by Marion Post Wolcott, 1939
[from the FSA archives]
Mosquito Crossing, GA [Greene County]
2008
Marion Post was born on June 7, 1910 in Montclair, New Jersey. Her parents divorced when she was 13, and she lived in a boarding school or with her mother in Greenwich Village where she was exposed to art at a young age. Her sister Helen studied photography in Vienna, and when Marion visited her, Helen's teacher encouraged her to pursue photography as well. Before returning to the U.S., Marion bought a camera and continued to take photos. Ralph Steiner and Paul Strand recommended her to the FSA which was so impressed with her work that she was hired on the spot. Her photographs for the FSA often explore the political aspects of poverty and deprivation as well as the beautiful positive side of America. They also often find humour in the situations she encountered. Marion Post Wolcott contributed 15,000 photos to the extensive FSA archives.
In 1941, Marion Post met Lee Wolcott. When she had finished her assignments for the FSA she married him, and gave up photography when raising a family became a priority. Marion Post Wolcott died on November 24, 1990, in Santa Barbara, CA.
In 1939, Marion Post Wolcott traveled through Greene County, GA and took the above photo of Mosquito Crossing which consists mainly of a general store that sits at the crossroads of Old Sparta and Syryp Mill Crossing Roads, between Greensboro and Sparta. Not much has changed since then. The dusty road has been paved, the sandy land has been partially reforested, and the mill adjacent to the store has not survived, but the store itself is still there and has recently been fixed up and offered for rent.
Mosquito Crossing, GA [Greene County]
May 1, 2005
Mosquito Crossing, GA [Greene County]
April 17, 2007
The FSA was established in 1935 as part of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs and given the mission to support small farmers and restore land and communities damaged by the Depression. The photographers employed under the FSA (which also included Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee and Louise Rosskam) produced images that greatly impacted how both policy-makers and the general public understood the Depression.
Book recommendation: "Bound for Glory: America in Color 1939-1943" by Paul Hendrickson. It contains 175 color photos from the FSA archives.
