Bowdoin College Museum of Art | - Waiting for the Bathroom, Boardinghouse series, Washington, D.C.

Preview image of work. vintage gelatin silver print, Waiting for the Bathroom, Boardinghouse series, Washington, D.C. 15768

2008.17.2

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Waiting for the Bathroom, Boardinghouse series, Washington, D.C.

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Artist

Esther Bubley (Phillips, WIsconsin, 1921 - 1998, New York City, New York)

Title

Waiting for the Bathroom, Boardinghouse series, Washington, D.C.

Creation Date

January 1943

Century

mid-20th century

Classification

Photographs

Creation Place

North America, United States, District of Columbia

Medium and Support

vintage gelatin silver print

Credit Line

Museum Purchase, Gridley W. Tarbell II Fund

Copyright

This artwork may be under copyright. For further information, please consult the Museum’s Copyright Terms and Conditions.

Accession Number

2008.17.2

These young residents of a Jewish boarding house in Washington, D.C. came, like many other Americans, to the capital to aid the war effort. This image by Esther Bubley, a photographer of Russian Jewish descent who had recently arrived from Wisconsin, conveys the challenge of making a new home, as a young woman asleep amidst a card party. Bubley empathized with her subjects without being a resident boarder herself. The success of her Boarding House series led to jobs as a darkroom technician at the Office of War Information and later as an editorial photographer for LIFE and the Ladies Home Journal.