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GLOUCESTER FISHERMAN AND FULTON FISH MARKET, 1943 - Photography Archive - The Gordon Parks Foundation

Lorenzo Scola Pilots the Ship, Gloucester, Massachusetts, 1943.

Another of Parks’s ﬁve assignments for the Ofﬁce of War Information involved the ﬁshing industry on the Atlantic coast, as part of a larger documentary project on food production and war mobilization. The assignment led him to Gloucester, Massachusetts, one of the nation’s oldest ﬁshing communities. Its historic port and rugged workers inspired a series of images of patriotic Americans hard at work supporting the war effort despite the harsh conditions of their lives. Parks accompanied the men in ﬂat-bottomed, double-ended rowing skiffs to sea, where they laid nets by hand; in town, Parks shot quiet, poised portraits.

In the spring of 1943, after photographing ﬁshing crews in Massachusetts, Parks went to New York City to record the bustling Fulton Fish Market on Manhattan’s southeast waterfront. Placing himself in the thick of the working pier, he captured the fast-paced transfer of ﬁsh from boats to market and the expressive faces of workers, often against the backdrop of an emerging city skyline in which 40 Wall Street (now the Trump Building), the American International Building, and 20 Exchange Place are visible.

Artworks

Artworks Thumbnails

Untitled, Gloucester, Massachusetts, 1943

Fishermen Pulling In Their Seining Net, Gloucester, Massachusetts, 1943.

Isabel Lopez, Gloucester, Massachusetts, 1943.

Playing Cards on the Way Home with a Full Hold of Fish, Gloucester, Massachusetts, 1943.

Mary Machado, Mother of Isabell Lopez, and Family, Gloucester, Massachusetts, 1943

Gloucester Fisherman, Gloucester, Massachusetts, 1943

Joseph Lopez, Gloucester, Massachusetts, 1943.

Untitled, Gloucester, Massachusetts, 1943

Fishermen Pulling In Their Nets, Gloucester, Massachusetts, 1943.

Foggy Morning at Fulton Fish Market, New York, New York, 1943.

Fulton Fish Market Hooker, New York, New York, 1943

Untitled, New York, New York, 1943

Fulton Fish Market, New York, New York, 1943

Stevedore Holding a Giant Lobster Claw, New York, New York, 1943.

Fulton Fish Market, New York, New York, 1943.

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