George "Elfie" Ballis (August 12, 1925 – September 24, 2010) was an American photographer and activist who advocated on behalf of migrant farm workers in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, and took tens of thousands of photographs documenting the efforts of

César Chávez Cesar Chavez (born Cesario Estrada Chavez ; ; March 31, 1927 – April 23, 1993) was an American labor leader and civil rights activist. Along with Dolores Huerta, he co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), which later merged ...

, the Mexican American labor leader who founded the

United Farm Workers The United Farm Workers of America, or more commonly just United Farm Workers (UFW), is a labor union for farmworkers in the United States. It originated from the merger of two workers' rights organizations, the Agricultural Workers Organizing ...

Early life and education

Ballis was born on August 12, 1925, the son of Greek and German immigrants, and was raised in

Faribault, Minnesota Faribault ( ) is a city in, and the county seat of, Rice County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 23,352 at the 2010 census. Faribault is approximately south of Minneapolis–Saint Paul. Interstate 35 and Minnesota State Highways ...

. He enlisted in the

United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and served in the South Pacific as a mechanic repairing torpedo bombers. After completing his military service, he earned an undergraduate degree from the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

and became involved in radical politics, joining the Student World Federalists. Ballis originally majored in electrical engineering, but despite his strong abilities in math and science he changed direction and eventually graduated with a double major in journalism and political science.

Career

One of his first jobs was at

U.S. Rubber The company formerly known as the United States Rubber Company, now Uniroyal, is an American manufacturer of tires and other synthetic rubber-related products, as well as variety of items for military use, such as ammunition, explosives, chemical ...

, where a manager told him that he "had to have a U.S. Rubber attitude... ready to go anywhere at anytime" but found that he "didn't have the U.S. Rubber attitude." After his car broke down while he was on vacation in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, Ballis decided to live there and took a job writing headlines for article in ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', where he was called in by his boss about his use of creative phrasing.Brown, Emma
"George 'Elfie' Ballis, 85, who photographed struggle of Cesar Chávez and migrant farmworkers, dies"
''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'', September 27, 2010. Accessed September 29, 2010. While working as an editor of a labor newspaper in the 1950s, Ballis took a photography course taught by

Dorothea Lange Dorothea Lange (born Dorothea Margaretta Nutzhorn; May 26, 1895 – October 11, 1965) was an American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Lange' ...

, a photographer and photojournalist who had documented the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

in her photos. He started taking pictures on his own, photographing migrant workers and showing the substandard housing and working conditions that they endured, saying "I wanted my photographs to reflect to them the power and dignity they had". Ballis made an effort to familiarize himself with his subjects before taking their pictures, a process by which he was able to take pictures having gained the respect of this he was photographing. Thousands of Ballis's photos captured the efforts of Cesar Chavez to organize Latino workers, leading to the formation of the United Farm Workers. Works by Ballis depicting protests and marches appeared in such publications as ''

Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...

'', ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...

'', ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'', ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' and ''

''. Labor historian Richard Steven Street called Ballis's work "activist photography with a point of view" and credited him as being one of a small number of freelance photographers who brought Chávez the public attention he needed to succeed in his efforts. As director of National Land for People, Ballis opposed a June 1980 decision by the United States Supreme Court that ruled that a 1902 law limiting irrigated farms to did not apply in the

Imperial Valley , photo = Salton Sea from Space.jpg , photo_caption = The Imperial Valley below the Salton Sea. The US-Mexican border runs diagonally across the lower left of the image. , map_image = Newriverwatershed-1-.jpg , map_caption = Map of Imperial ...

. Ballis called the decision "Morally, legally, socially, politically and economically, a bankrupt decision", saying that there were a disproportionate number of large corporate and foreign-owned farms that benefited from federal subsidies for irrigation, and Ballis expressed concern that the ruling could lead to the repeal of such limits in other agricultural areas of California. While directing the National Land for People, Ballis made a 23-minute film titled The Richest Land that juxtaposed small farmers and corporate farmers, and Jessie Lopez De La Cruz and

Dolores Huerta Dolores Clara Fernández Huerta (born April 10, 1930) is an American labor leader and civil rights activist who, with Cesar Chavez, is a co-founder of the National Farmworkers Association, which later merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizi ...

both made cameos.

Death

A resident of

Tollhouse, California Tollhouse (formerly, Toll House) is an unincorporated community in Fresno County, California. It lies at an elevation of . Tollhouse is located in the Sierra Nevada, southwest of Shaver Lake and 18 miles southwest of Huntington Lake. It is hom ...

, Ballis died at age 85 on September 24, 2010, at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in

Fresno, California Fresno () is a major city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley region. It covers about and had a population of 542,107 in 2020, makin ...

, where he had been treated for

prostate cancer Prostate cancer is cancer of the prostate. Prostate cancer is the second most common cancerous tumor worldwide and is the fifth leading cause of cancer-related mortality among men. The prostate is a gland in the male reproductive system that sur ...

.Lopez, Pablo
"Documentary photographer George Ballis dies"
, ''

The Fresno Bee ''The Fresno Bee'' is a daily newspaper serving Fresno, California, and surrounding counties in that U.S. state's central San Joaquin Valley. It is owned by The McClatchy Company and ranks fourth in circulation among the company's newspapers. I ...

'', September 26, 2010. Accessed October 4, 2010.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ballis, George 1925 births 2010 deaths Photographers from California United States Marine Corps personnel of World War II People from Fresno County, California Deaths from cancer in California Deaths from prostate cancer United States Marines University of Minnesota alumni 20th-century American photographers People from Faribault, Minnesota