Imaging Hoover Dam by Anthony F. Arrigo

Author:Anthony F. Arrigo [Arrigo, Anthony F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, General, Media Studies, Anthropology, Cultural & Social, History, United States, Popular Culture
ISBN: 9780874179538
Google: OG2VDwAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 21975775
Publisher: University of Nevada Press
Published: 2014-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Visual and Verbal Depictions of Women

Although women were largely excluded from images of the dam itself or technology of any kind, those who lived at or near the construction site were occasionally depicted in other images. Nonetheless, these were often restricted to a binary of patrimonial depictions that mostly frame the woman as a personification of the cultural ideal as a mother or caretaker, but occasionally as the fille de joie. This dichotomy is one that conveniently fulfills and reifies the dominant patriarchal affirmation of woman's intrinsic duality: on the one hand a matron suited for child rearing, and on the other a woman suited for pleasure.

Photographs of women as matrons almost always show them at home (often just a tent) tending children. In figure 5.08 we see an image representative of the typical depiction of women and similar in many ways to the “Williamsville” image discussed later. Here we see a mother who lives in a tent holding one child while her other two children play in the dirt. A small coal stove sits next to the tent, and a table and various belongings are strewn about behind them, while in the distance is a white home. Just as in the “Williamsville” image, there are no men present in the photo, as men are almost never shown in the same frame as children. Likewise, there is also no machinery or dam-related technology in the photo, as is also characteristic. Other images depict women in front of temporary housing, children playing in the scrub grass and desert sand under a woman's supervision, and women cooking, cleaning, or tending children in a variety of similar settings.

Another image of women is one of Winthrop Davis's most well known photographs, “Prostitutes at the Arizona Club on Las Vegas's Block 16” (figure 5.09), which generated so much interest because it expressly violated the publically acceptable narrative of woman as matron and instead flaunted taboo through its (scandalously for its time) direct and unapologetic depiction of prostitutes. In this image we see Las Vegas's designated “red light” district, called Block 16, where brothels, bars, speakeasies, and gambling halls would entertain many of the thousands of men who worked at the dam site. Prostitution was rampant in Las Vegas but banned in Boulder City; however, Davis describes how it moved with ease from one location to the other. “When the construction started the government started squeezing the guys in Vegas to hold it down,” he said. “Well, half of those prostitutes left Vegas and they came out here and they were supposed to be wives of some of the workers. That caused quite a bit of trouble for awhile cause some of the women were working two shifts, if you know what I mean.”51

In keeping with the government's campaign to curtail visual and verbal testimonials that ran counter to their preferred narrative, Davis's now widely seen photograph of prostitutes did not find circulation at the time of its production. Only later in efforts to showcase his work in galleries and art museums did these photographs receive public airing.

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