Life for Black Americans in the 1940s was in full transformation when this photograph was made. They were encountering and witnessing the effects of the ‘Great Migration’, the depression, blatant discrimination and a desire to live a life of freedom. After spending a few days in Washington D.C., Gordon Parks felt a combination of disappointment and idealism. He was disillusioned by the segregation practices, from the limited access Blacks had to purchasing clothing and quality food, entering movie theaters and eating in restaurants in the city. This is when he began making photographs of Ella Watson, who cleaned Farm Security Administration offices in a government building.  

The first time I saw it in an undergraduate photography class in the 1970s I knew it was an iconic image, a provocative portrait that posed questions about social justice. I was awestruck, as it afforded a rare attention to a Black female subject who was not a celebrity or an entertainer but a mother, grandmother, and worker. As the professor moved to the next slide, I held fast to the image of Ella Watson: her polka-dotted dress with puffed sleeves and two missing buttons, her wire-rimmed glasses half in shadow, the inverted tools of her labour, the straw curve of the worn broom and the curl of cotton mop. The intensity of her gaze drew me in, it allowed me to enter the picture and wonder at her — was she a willing model? Over the years, various readings of the images have stressed the struggles in her life, her long working hours, as the image is still being critiqued today. For Parks, she represented the constant struggles and the poor employment status of Black Americans.  

In addressing the notion of iconic images today, this image has become rooted and stored in our personal memory as we reference women workers, ethics, and the disenfranchised living and working in America today. Having known poverty intimately himself, Parks hoped that others would empathize (and become motivated to make a change) with the poor and the under,- or unemployed. He created a portrait that gave shape and space for the viewer to imagine her life as a federal employee.  

DEBORAH WILLIS is an artist, author and curator whose art and pioneering research focuses on cultural histories envisioning the Black body, women and gender. She is an acclaimed historian of photography, MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellow, as well as Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. In 2014 Willis received the NAACP award for Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery which she co-authored with Barbara Krauthamer. Dr. Willis's most recent work is her forthcoming single-authored book, Reflections in Black | 25th Anniversary Edition: A Reframing, published by Liveright.