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Happy May Day from Interference Archive
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In celebration of May Day, we would like to share with you an original essay by Martin Lucas about the Film and Photo League, a small group of filmmakers who were the cultural arm of the Workers International Relief, which gave support to workers on strike. From picket lines to nationwide marches against unemployment, anti-fascist demonstrations, and more, the League documented the social unrest that defined the Depression years.
In July 2013, Martin presented these films at Interference Archive and facilitated a discussion about their history and context for the Strike Then, Strike Now! exhibition. We are thrilled to share some of this history now, on this international workers holiday!
Lastly, as we celebrate this May Day, will you join the 100+ members of the Interference community who donate monthly to sustain the work that we do?
The Film and Photo League
by Martin Lucas
Images of Social Change
If asked to think of images of the 1930s Great Depression, we think typically of still photos: stark black and white shots of the misery associated with being jobless in a society where this meant starvation and homelessness. We see soup kitchens with long lines of desperate men, migrant workers fleeing the Dustbowl with hopelessness in their eyes. We might even have some kind of memory of the New Deal, perhaps FDR with his cigarette in its long holder. But there is a missing image: the image of millions of unemployed and unorganized Americans who were actively seeking ways out of desperation within months of the 1929 crash.
The 1930s in the US were a period of fervent and creative social upheaval. The country that emerged from that period some ten years later was in many ways an entirely different country, a nascent modern ‘welfare’ state instead of a laissez-faire one, and a society where people were able to conceive of themselves and their society in class terms, in national terms, and even in personal terms in ways completely different from previous periods.
One of the key new forms that helped construct an image of the American people for itself — one of what film scholar Jonathan Kahana calls ‘cultural technologies’ that arose in this period along with pollsters, government surveys, and photographic essays — was the documentary film. Although documentary has its origins in the Soviet Union and Great Britain, where government-supported non-fiction film was deployed to help define and create the modern state, in its American form the social documentary was initially conceived of as a radical tool, even revolutionary in relation to any state or government. >>> Click Here to Read Full Essay
Support Interference!
Did you know that all operating costs are covered by donations from people or visiting groups who believe in Interference Archive? Every dollar goes directly to keeping us open and preserving our collection, by paying our rent and utilities.
As we celebrate the power of people to organize themselves for change this May Day 2015, we’re holding a sustainer drive to ask for your support for our work in solidarity with movements everywhere.
Over a hundred members of our community currently support our work as sustainers who give $10 to $50 per month. You can become a sustainer by giving a monthly or annual recurring donation. If you’ve been meaning to help out as a volunteer but haven’t had the time, we would be equally grateful for your support through a financial donation. What's more? Interference Archive is now a 501c3. So your donation is tax-deductible.
Here are a few great reasons to give:
- we're accountable to individuals -- that means you! -- rather than corporations
- we preserve and give access to histories that aren't kept elsewhere
- we are a hub for movement conversations, for material production, and for activation of movements that are happening right now.
Stop by to visit our current exhibition on tenant organizing in New York City, and mark your calendars for summer programming about music and politics, followed by a fall exhibition highlighting the work of OSPAAAL (the Organization of Solidarity with the people of Asia, Africa and Latin America).
Thank you so much for your support!
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