Balancing: A Mother and Farmer, Part of a National Archives Exhibit The Way We Worked

Jean Schnelle pulling weeds

Jean Schnelle pulls weeds out of a planter while balancing her six-month-old son, Dwight, on her hip
By Michelle Bogre, Lockwood Missouri, ca. 1978. National Archives, Records of the U.S. Information Agency

Editor's Note: The photograph above was part of a National Archives exhibit entitled The Way We Worked; the exhibit ended on May 29, 2006. These notes were written for the exhibit.

Visit the National Archives both online and in person. Don't overlook the National Archives Foundation shop; we pinned a number of items on our Pinterest Museum Shops board including Civil War bookmarks.

Michelle Bogre

Michelle Bogre was an undergraduate photography student at the University of Missouri in 1975 when a professor offered her the chance to participate in federal effort to photograph American farm life for the 1976 Bicentennial. As the granddaughter of farmers, Michelle jumped at this opportunity. She drove through rural Missouri in an old, beat up Ford, attending county fairs using word of mouth to meet people willing to let her spend time with them and capture their lives. Her photos were featured in the US Department of Agriculture's 1976 book The Face of Rural America.

Thirty years later, Michelle is now the Chair of photography at Parsons School of Design in New York City. In addition to being a photographer, she is also a writer, photo critic, marketing communications consultant and lawyer specializing in intellectual property issues. Michelle looks back on that time as a "transformative summer" and "the experience that started everything" for her.

Jean Schnelle

Jean Schnelle claims she stepped outside with her 6 month old son Dwight in order to get away from Michelle Bogre, the eager student photographer who wouldn't leave her alone. "She ate with us, slept with us. She photographed everything we did. She even came with me to the beauty shop." Jean participated in all aspects of farming life — sorting cattle, driving tractors, and weeding — while also raising seven children. The 3,000 acre Schnelle farm has been owned by the family for five generations. Now almost 70 years old and a grandmother of fifteen, Jean still helps out with farm work.

Dwight Schnelle

Dwight Schnelle has been involved in all segments of farm life since even before his photographic debut at 6 months. Asked if it was strange to be contacted by the National Archives 30 years after the photo was taken, Dwight responded: "According to my mom, this is not as bizarre as having a photographer move in with you and stay for over a week." A graduate of the Missouri State in Springfield, Missouri where he studied agriculture, Dwight is now the part owner and operator of the family farm, where he raises 300 head of Black Angus cattle and grows soybeans, corn and wheat. Dwight and his wife Amanda have two sons — Max, who is almost 3, and Henry, who is a month old.

From the Winter 2005 issue of Prologue, Volume 27, No. 4.

The Way We Worked

By Bruce I. Bustard

"Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain
Must bring back our mighty dream again."
— Langston Hughes, "Let America Be America Again," 1938

Imagine working in a coal mine. Or in a steel mill. Or at a telephone switchboard. Work and workplaces have gone through enormous transformations between the mid-19th and the late 20th century. The Way We Worked, a photography exhibit that opened on December 16, 2005, at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., offered a lens for viewing these changes through photography held by the National Archives.

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Balancing: A Mother and Farmer, Part of a National Archives Exhibit The Way We Worked

The Way We Worked

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