American Gothic, Washington, D.C., 1942

Parks created this portrait of Ella Watson, a government cleaning woman, by positioning her in front of an American Flag and placing a broom and a mop in her hands, echoing in pose as well as in title Grant Wood’s by then iconic 1930 painting of rural American resilience American Gothic. Watson worked in the building of the Farm Security Administration, a program of the New Deal whose fellowship brought Parks to Washington, DC. Parks, who would go on to become the first African American photographer at Life magazine, was taken aback by the overt racism he encountered in the nation’s capital and saw in Watson a potent critique of the country’s inequalities as well as a version of American fortitude.