Russell Lee’s most famous photograph, out of the thousands he took during the Great Depression, is the unlikely shot of bargoers at a logging town in Northern Minnesota.
—–Editor: Britt Aamodt Producer: Britt Aamodt Editorial support: Emily Krumberger Mixing & mastering: Chris Harwood
Transcript
MN90 Intro: Welcome to MN90: Minnesota History in 90 Seconds.
Narrator: Russell Lee had a job. That was something to be said during the Great Depression, when nearly a quarter of the workforce couldn’t find two nickels to rub together. In 1936, the photographer was snapped up by the Farm Security Administration to document the lives of ordinary Americans.
For the next six years, he’d be living out of his car as he journeyed through 29 states. He photographed Dust Bowl migrants and miners, poverty and racism.
In September 1937, Lee rolled into Craigville, a Northern Minnesota logging town. There he captured a lumberjack with a bandaged eye. A man sleeping under a table. And four people enjoying a drink at a saloon.
That last image would become one of Lee’s most recognized when, in 1982, it was used in the opening sequence of the TV sitcom Cheers.
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