At the Time of the Louisville Flood, also known as World's Highest Standard of Living, is a black-and-white photograph taken in early 1937 by photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White while on assignment for Life. The photo shows Black flood refugees waiting in line for Red Cross relief in the aftermath of the Ohio River flood of 1937 in Louisville. Behind the refugees, a billboard advertisement for the National Association of Manufacturers appears in the background reading, "World's Highest Standard of Living: There's No Way Like the American Way".
It is one of several photos of the Red Cross relief line taken from different angles and one of more than 20 flood-related images Bourke-White produced in the series, only eight of which were originally published in two issues of Life in February of that year. The photo is often recontextualized and used as a symbol of the Great Depression even though it was intended to document the Louisville flood; the photo lacks visual cues about its location and subject, and awareness of its context was lost over time. It is among Bourke-White's most well-known photographs.
Digital and print selections from the series are currently held in several archival collections, including the Life Picture Collection, the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and the International Center of Photography, among others. An additional set of photos documenting Bourke-White's work on the series from the perspective of Louisville photographer Corwin Short are held by the University of Louisville.
Description The image depicts the aftermath of the 1937 Ohio River flood in Kentucky, showing residents from Black neighborhoods in Louisville, including men, women, and children. They wait in line with baskets and pails to receive water, food, and medicine from a Red Cross relief station near 13th and Broadway in the California neighborhood. Behind the queue, a billboard featuring an advertisement from the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) is visible. It depicts a seemingly happy white middle-class family driving through the countryside. The words "World's Highest Standard of Living" appear across the top of the billboard, while smaller text below reads, "There's No Way Like the American Way!" Of the 18 people depicted in the frame waiting for flood relief, only one appears to be looking at the billboard.
Background Margaret Bourke-White grew up in a family where her father was an amateur photographer. As a child, she helped him develop photographs, but did not seriously immerse herself in photography until she studied with Clarence White, a founding member of the Photo-Secession movement that promoted photography as fine art. In 1927, she started a commercial photography business in Cleveland producing architectural and industrial photography for corporate clients. The next year, she made a name for herself at the age of 24 with industrial images for the Otis Steel Company.
Her commercial work got her noticed by American magazine magnate Henry Luce, who recruited her as a photojournalist to the new Fortune magazine, where her interest in documentary photography slowly grew in her new role. At Fortune, she became the first foreign photographer granted official access to document industrial sites in the Soviet Union during the first five-year plan. She visited the country three times on assignment to cover its growing industrialization. During those trips, she photographed workers and peasants alongside the Russian infrastructure.
While her initial interest in documentary photography emerged during her first visit to Russia, the documentary aesthetic of Fortune magazine also played a role. In the summer of 1934, she was on assignment for the magazine, covering the major drought impacting the United States at the time. She produced a photo-essay on the Dust Bowl, focusing on people as subjects rather than industry. This experience changed her approach to photography, In her autobiography, she recalled the emergence of this new "awareness":
Bourke-White began a collaboration with Erskine Caldwell in early 1936 on a project that became You Have Seen Their Faces. She was hired as the first woman photojournalist and staff photographer for the newly formed Life magazine later that year, joining Alfred Eisenstaedt, Peter Stackpole, and Thomas McAvoy. Her photo of Fort Peck Dam appeared on the cover of the first issue.
Ohio River flood of 1937
The Ohio River flooded in late January 1937 after heavy rain earlier in the month, causing damage along the river and smaller tributaries. Temperatures were cold enough that ice was reported floating along northern portions of the river. Five states were impacted: West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky, with a total of one million left homeless by the flooding.
The flood destroyed more than half of the city of Louisville, Kentucky, putting seventy percent of the city under water and forcing 175,000 residents out of their homes. Floodwaters reached depths of 10 feet (3.05 m) in the West End and downtown. The flood contributed to the demise of the neighborhoods of Shippingport and The Point.
Flood damage was estimated at $250 million . According to the American Red Cross, it was the greatest natural disaster in the organization's history up to that point. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) contacted the United States Coast Guard for help, with reports that Black residents were facing discrimination when it came to flood rescues.
On assignment The Ohio River flood was still breaking news when Bourke-White finished up covering the second inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt in Washington, D.C. Life editor Shaw Billings gave Bourke-White an hour to figure out how to get down to Louisville and cover the story. She boarded the final flight and landed at Bowman Field airport in Louisville just before the airfield was submerged some time after January 20. Upon her arrival, she was met by Kentucky native, realtor, and photographer Corwin Short, who was directed by then-mayor of Louisville Neville Miller to guide Bourke-White throughout the flooded city.
They hitchhiked by raft into town, taking several photos along the way. Later, in 1963, Bourke-White recalled: "I thumbed rides in rowboats and once on a large raft. These makeshift craft were bringing food packages and bottles of clean drinking water to marooned families and seeking out survivors. Working from the rowboats gave me good opportunities to record acts of mercy as they occurred."
Short captured more than 100 photos of the flood, some featuring Bourke-White at work on her assignment. In one photo, Bourke-White and her camera and tripod are poised on the roof of a car amidst the flood below. Other photos in Short's series show Bourke-White walking along a pontoon bridge and as a passenger in a rowboat.
The offices of The Courier Journal and The Louisville Times at the Old U.S. Customshouse and Post Office building in downtown Louisville became a base of operations for the press, with Bourke-White documenting their efforts to cover the flood, as well as using the offices as a place to sleep. Three of the photos in her series document the newspaper staff, including a group photo showing them working on the latest newspaper edition by the light of kerosene lamps due to the power outage. Two other photos depict editor Tom Wallace and news editor Wilbur B. Cogshall.
Many churches were converted into food distribution and relief centers, often because they were built on higher ground. During her tour of the flood, Bourke-White captured a photo of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, where the pews were used to store canned food that was distributed by the Red Cross. At Churchill Downs, Bourke-White took a photo of the flooded racetrack. Inside the clubhouse, she captured a famous image of Jim Lawhorn, an elderly Black man in his 90s. The photo of Lawhorn, a former slave turned flood refugee, made an impression with the public. In Buechel, Bourke-White visited a relief station at Hikes Grade School, where she photographed a nurse getting ready to inoculate flood refugees against typhoid.
Original publication
The first photos and coverage of the Ohio River flood published by Life appeared in the February 1, 1937, edition, but Bourke-White was not the photographer, as she was still on assignment at the inauguration of FDR in Washington, with one of her photos of the event in the same edition. Her flood photos were first published in the February 8 issue, beginning with the photo "Baby in Shelter During Flood, Louisville, Kentucky," which appeared prominently in the lead position of the story "Faces in the Flood."
At the Time of the Louisville Flood was first published in the February 15 issue on page nine, two weeks after Life had begun its coverage of the flood. It appeared as the lead photograph in a seven-photo feature for a photo-essay titled "Floods Aftermath", with the headline, "The flood leaves its victims on the bread line". The essay continued across two additional pages of photos showing flood victims. In that same issue, 15 photos by Bourke-White appeared in a separate story about the Supreme Court of the United States.
Reception Readers of Life magazine reacted positively to Bourke-White's coverage of the Louisville flood. Photographer Louis Clyde Stoumen, then a college student at Lehigh University, wrote a letter to the editor praising At the Time of the Louisville Flood, calling Bourke-White "truly great" and applauding the magazine for its "editorial courage" in publishing the photo. Another letter to the editor came from Walter White of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who congratulated the magazine on its "fair pictorial representation" of Black Americans in its story about the flood victims. American studies scholar John Raeburn later described At the Time of the Louisville Flood as one of the "strongest" photos of Bourke-White's career. Photography professor Mark Durden called the photo "brilliant and succinct", arguing that it represents Bourke-White's departure from the world of commercial photography toward a documentary style rooted in what he describes as the "truth and honesty" of human experience.
Analysis National Association of Manufacturers
The billboard featured in the photo originated in a campaign by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), a pro-business trade association founded in 1895. NAM took a market fundamentalism position while representing the interests of American companies. They opposed unions, federal taxes, and government regulations, including restrictions on child labor in the early 20th century.
Beginning in 1935, NAM came out in opposition to the New Deal, with The Business Week announcing that NAM had declared "war" on the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. They began their campaign the next year, taking out newspaper advertisements arguing against the program. The group was supported in their opposition by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Liberty League, and a number of media outlets. Their campaign coincided with the 1936 United States presidential election, which Roosevelt won in a landslide victory, despite NAM's efforts.