Song of Labor c. 1930

Curator: Here we have Jessie Beard Rickly's woodcut print, "Song of Labor," created around 1930. Editor: Whew, there's so much frantic energy crammed into this tiny black and white world! It's like looking at a city symphony distilled into a stark visual shout. Curator: It's a powerful image reflecting the Social Realist movement's focus on depicting the lives and struggles of the working class during the Depression era. The dense composition emphasizes the relentless activity of city construction. Editor: Absolutely! The woodcut medium is brilliant. It’s such a rough, unyielding technique—perfect for mirroring the harsh reality of labor and the gritty architecture rising around these workers. You can almost feel the vibrations from jackhammers. Curator: Indeed, the figures, almost caricatures of exertion, merge with the skeletal steel structures, highlighting the dehumanizing aspects of industrial labor. It really emphasizes how individuals become subsumed into the vast mechanisms of the city. Editor: It also strikes me that she isn’t really showing us a celebration of the fruits of labor. "Song of Labor?" It’s more like a discordant tune—off-key, even—suggesting perhaps an undercurrent of unease. The upward striving toward "progress" also seems very ominous and overwhelming. Curator: That's astute. While superficially a scene of industriousness, the image carries a darker undercurrent. Rickly’s use of stark contrasts and skewed perspective disrupts any idealized vision of urban development, aligning more with a critique of the human cost behind progress. Her artistic vision serves not just to represent labor, but to investigate how socio-economic forces are manifested in that labor. Editor: Thinking about that cost really reframes how I see it. Instead of feeling only hectic energy, there’s a profound sense of, not necessarily hopelessness, but heavy determination—the workers will persevere, but at what price? It really lingers in the mind... Curator: I agree; Rickly doesn’t offer easy answers, only a provocative, visually stunning glimpse into a complex reality. Editor: Absolutely. It is a powerful print; I see it not only as a representation of but also a rumination on labor and what its song has to tell us.