Shenandoah 1910

Editor: Here we have Joseph Pennell's "Shenandoah," a compelling print. The smokestacks and telephone poles give a sense of industry, but it also feels desolate. What can you tell me about this work? Curator: Pennell's print offers an insight into the means of production. Consider the labor implied by the scene: the miners, the construction workers who erected the telephone poles. Editor: So, it's less about the landscape and more about the industrial processes shaping it? Curator: Precisely. It prompts us to think about the relationship between labor, materiality, and the transformation of the environment. What do you make of that contrast? Editor: That's a perspective I hadn't considered. It makes the image more about the human cost of progress. Curator: Exactly! The image is a narrative about how we interact with the environment and build our society, literally.