The Workers Film and Photo League was an organization of filmmakers, photographers, writers and projectionists in the 1930s, dedicated to using film and photography for social change.

History

Founded in 1930, the WFPL produced documentaries of the U.S. labor movement including the National Hunger marches of 1931 and 1932 and the Bonus March 1932. These newsreels were generally not distributed to mainstream theaters, but shown at party or trade union events. When shown in theaters, they often opened for films produced in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

or the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

. In New York, the "Harry Alan Potamkin Film School" was established by the Workers Film and Photo League to train working-class filmmakers. Initially affiliated with the

Workers International Relief The Workers International Relief (WIR) — also known as Internationale Arbeiter-Hilfe (IAH) in German and as Международная рабочая помощь (Mezhdunarodny Rabochy Komitet Pomoshchi Golodayushchim Rossii − Mezhrabpom) in R ...

, the group first organized to project films at fundraising events for striking workers. Although the best known chapter of the WFPL was in New York, groups in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

, and other cities created and screened documentaries under the "Film and Photo League" moniker. Nationally, the Film & Photo Leagues emerged as a loosely knit alliance of local organizations that provided leftist visual propaganda. Their efforts during the years of the early Depression helped to define social documentary film and photography as a genre. Much has been made of the association of the Workers Film and Photo League with

Communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a ...

, both in the United States and abroad. While many members were self identified Marxists and Communist Party USA members, the groups usually functioned independently. They were largely composed of idealists who saw the documentary film as a vital element of the movement for radical social change. In 1933 "Workers" was dropped from the title and the New York organization became the Film and Photo League. The FPL survived for another year in New York, where its photographers formed the

Photo League The Photo League was a cooperative of photographers in New York who banded together around a range of common social and creative causes. Founded in 1936, the League included some of the most noted American photographers of the mid-20th century amon ...

. Some filmmakers formed an independent private production company, others founded Nykino and some, later, the Frontier Film Group. In other cities, such as Chicago and Los Angeles, Film and Photo League activities continued throughout the 1930s.

Members of the WFPL

New York

* Lester Balog * Tom Brandon *

Sam Brody Sam Brody (January 1, 1907 – September 9, 1987) was a founding member of the Workers Film and Photo League, an independent organization founded in 1931 to produce and present films documenting the Great Depression from a Marxist perspective. ...

* Robert Del Duca * Arnold S. Eagle *

Leo Hurwitz Leo Hurwitz (June 23, 1909 – January 18, 1991) was an American documentary filmmaker. Among the films he directed were '' Native Land'' (1942) and ''Verdict for Tomorrow'' (1961), the Emmy Award- and Peabody Award-winning film of the Eichman ...

Lewis Jacobs Lewis Jacobs (1904 – February 11, 1997) was an American screenwriter, film director and critic. He authored several books, including ''The Rise of the American Film''. Early life Jacobs was born in 1904 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He ...

* Vic Kandel *

Irving Lerner Irving Lerner (March 7, 1909, New York City – December 25, 1976, Los Angeles) was an American filmmaker. Biography Before becoming a filmmaker, Lerner was a research editor for Columbia University's Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, getting h ...

Jay Leyda Jay Leyda (February 12, 1910 – February 15, 1988)David Stirk and Elena Pinto Simon in was an American avant-garde filmmaker and film historian, noted for his work on U.S, Soviet, and Chinese cinema, as well as his documentary compilations on ...

* Nancy Naumberg *

David Platt David Andrew Platt (born 10 June 1966) is an English former professional football coach and player, who played as a midfielder. Born in Chadderton, Lancashire, Platt began his career as an apprentice at Manchester United before moving to Crewe ...

* Harry Alan Potamkin *

Julian Roffman Julian may refer to: People * Julian (emperor) (331–363), Roman emperor from 361 to 363 * Julian (Rome), referring to the Roman gens Julia, with imperial dynasty offshoots * Saint Julian (disambiguation), several Christian saints * Julian (gi ...

Leo Seltzer Leo A. Seltzer (April 5, 1903 – January 30, 1978) is generally credited as the creator of the sport of roller derby, and was the founder and head of the original Roller Derby league from 1935 until his son Jerry Seltzer took over the business in ...

Ralph Steiner Ralph Steiner (February 8, 1899 – July 13, 1986) was an American photographer, pioneer documentarian and a key figure among avant-garde filmmakers in the 1930s. Photographer Born in Cleveland, Steiner studied chemistry at Dartmouth, but in ...

Chicago

* Maurice Baillen *

Conrad Friberg, aka C.O. Nelson Conrad Friberg (1896-1989) was an American filmmaker, labor organizer and wallpaper hanger in Chicago, Illinois. Many of his films are credited to "C.O. Nelson". His best known work is ''Halsted Street'', which he produced when a member and lead ...

* John Freitag * Gordon Koster * William Kruck * John Masek * Dr. William J. Twig

Detroit

* Joseph Hudyma * Jack Auringer

San Francisco

* Lester Balog * Otto Hagel *

Hansel Mieth Hansel Mieth (1909–1998) was a German-born photojournalist who worked on the staff of LIFE Magazine. She was best known for her social commentary photography which recorded the lives of working class Americans in the 1930s and 1940s. Biograph ...

Los Angeles

* Louis Siminow

Film and Photo League films

Although many of the films produced by the Film and Photo Leagues were destroyed in a 1935 storage fire in New York, some surviving films can be found at the Museum of Modern Art Film Study Center, New York; Film Center, School of the Art Institute of Chicago; and the Library of Congress, Washington D.C. A filmography was created by researchers in the 1970s. * National Hunger March * Bonus March * Detroit Ford Massacre * Workers Newsreels * Halsted Street * The Great Depression * Century of Progress * Berry Strike