Railroad Crossing Guard (Richmond, Virginia), from the project The Negro in Virginia

Robert McNeill, Railroad Crossing Guard (Richmond, Virginia), from the project The Negro in Virginia, 1938, gelatin silver print, sheet: 8 ¹⁄₂ x 10 in. (21.6 x 25.4 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1993.72.3, © 1938, Robert McNeill

Artwork Details

Title: Railroad Crossing Guard (Richmond, Virginia), from the project The Negro in Virginia
Artist: Robert McNeill
Date: 1938
Location: Not on view
Dimensions: sheet: 8 ¹⁄₂ x 10 in. (21.6 x 25.4 cm)
Copyright: © 1938, Robert McNeill
Credit Line: Museum purchase
Mediums Description: gelatin silver print
Classifications: Photography
Photoprint
Subjects: Landscape — Virginia — Richmond
Occupation — service — guard
Architecture — industry — railroad yard
African American
Figure male
Object Number: 1993.72.3
Linked Open Data: https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1993.72.3

Artwork Description

McNeill was hired to take photographs for the publication The Negro in Virginia, one of more than a dozen undertakings on the subject of black life and history launched by the Federal Writers’ Project in the late 1930s. Using text by African American authors, interviews with former slaves, statistical surveys, and photographs, the project sought to dispel myths about slavery and focus attention on the contemporary lives of black Virginians. McNeill understood that editors aimed for a noncontroversial book. “What they wanted were pictures of people at work, pictures that would show the soul of people in their jobs…even for people in menial occupations…I tried to be as positive as I could.”

African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era, and Beyond, 2012