Transcript
Preface
The following oral history transcript is the result of a recorded interview with Theodor Jung on January 19, 1965. The interview took place in San Francisco, California, and was conducted by Richard Keith Doud for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. This interview is part of the Archives of American Art's New Deal and the Arts project.
The original transcript was edited. In 2022 the Archives retranscribed the original audio and attempted to create a verbatim transcript. Additional information from the original transcript has been added in brackets and given an –Ed. attribution. This transcript has been lightly edited for readability by the Archives of American Art. The reader should bear in mind that they are reading a transcript of spoken, rather than written, prose.
Researchers should note there is radio frequency interference throughout the recording.
Interview
RICHARD K. DOUD: This is an interview with Theodor Jung at his home in San Francisco January 19, 1965. The interviewer is Richard K. Doud.
THEODOR JUNG: I was born in Vienna and came to this country very, very early age. I didn't go to school at all over there. My parents separated. My mother came to this country by herself, alone. And she was very successful in her work [which happens to have been in the field of ballet –Ed.]]. So, she sent money to my grandmother who was taking care of me in Vienna. And I came over on the George Washington at the age of six, and came back to Chicago. [Knowing not a word of English, and I was sort of –Ed.] popped right into school. And I was about ten years old when I got my first camera. That's where it started. Somebody made a present to me [of a box Brownie –Ed.].
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: And I took the usual snapshots, pictures that I guess most people will take of their friends and family outings and picnics and things of that sort. And I used it when I was in school. Some of my pictures were used in the annual of the high school. I went to a place called [inaudible] Seminary since my mother was working and [inaudible] put in boarding school. And I kept taking pictures. And I didn't take pictures only of my schoolmates and so forth, I used to take pictures I guess that some of my companions thought rather odd. I'd take pictures of bicycles, and of horse and wagon, and some of the buildings, and then pictures from my room of the snow on the boughs, and the general campus views, and the landscape.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: And so, those were some of the things that I took of—that already, I guess, indicated that I wasn't just going to be the ordinary album type of snap-shooter, although at the time I didn't know. It was pretty much of an intuitive sort of thing, just responding to my environment and things that intrigued me. What intrigued I guess was the everyday life around me. And I grew up with a slight talent for drawing. But it didn't take too long to discover that I didn't have a—the amount of requisite talent or ability required by means of pencil and [inaudible] and so forth. So, I more and more commenced to use my camera for recording things that I saw and enjoyed around me.
Well, let's see. I don't—I'm to recollect about how old I was when I started to get some of the more—the better equipment and I joined a camera club in Chicago. I think this was somewhere around college days, or shortly thereafter. Started off with a little thing called an [Urnamen –Ed.] sports camera, which was a predecessor of the 35 millimeter. I think it was a predecessor, or else it was simultaneous. Took the best pocket size pictures.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: I think that was the first camera of this kind I used. And at that time I was more interested in taking patterns of unusual things that I saw around me that would be apt to be overlooked, like shadows cast by—well, let's say, I think particularly of things in the Chicago Loop which were always very intriguing to me.
[00:05:04]
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: I had an addiction, I guess because I grew up in the—in a large city—for the urban scene, although occasionally I would take pictures out in the country in one of the neighboring suburban districts that were at that time still pretty unspoiled. But—well, I remember one early shot I took was of a fishing net that was cast in the water by a fisherman and there was the enjoyment of the patterns of the lines made by this particular net and in the water. And I took a close-up of—let's see, I'm trying to think of the word. It was a phenomenon that intrigued me greatly that was the shadows cast by fire escapes. That's what I'm trying to say.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Oh, yes. Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: In fact, I still have a few of those I think still in my early portfolio from those times. And I was intrigued by views from above of people down below when I was on the elevator. And naturally I sort of got started wondering—as I went into book shops or camera stores, I'd see focal annuals and this got me to leafing through and seeing what other people were doing with the camera. And obviously this had some effect on my development, particularly the German annual called Das Deutsche Lichtbild, which brought out, I think, probably the most unusual, at least from my point of view, collection of photographs that was being published at the time. And another important influence I recollect was a book called Auglitzer Zeit [ph] it was a German photographer who's recently had a big book brought out of work he did. And these were pictures just of everyday people of various strata of society in Germany.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: Everyday workers, you know, just ordinary laborers, physicians, artists. And I commenced to get oriented toward thinking about society, people. And the—well, the thing that I think really had most decisive influence was the Great Depression. I was thrown out of work. And I was unemployed. And I saw what was going on in the city there. And it moved me very much. I was deeply involved with the plight of the unemployed. I could—I would see the fellows, you know, setting up little fires underneath the Wacker bridge there. And of course, there were demonstrations going on. And I actually participated in some of these hunger marches.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: Of course, I felt a great sense of indignation that there should be—that we had at our command enormous resources and yet why in God's name should we have all this poverty and unemployment. I commenced to think about social things.
Then I took a trip to New York and there was rather a significant stop there at the famous Julien Levy Gallery, which was one of the few galleries at this time that was showing photographs. And there I saw this tremendous group of photographs of the city of Paris by Eugene Atget. I'm sure you must have—
RICHARD K. DOUD: Yeah.
THEODOR JUNG: —heard of or seen the—
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: —things that he did. And this sort of also turned me over toward that kind of picture rather than, you know, at that time there was a strong movement in camera clubs called pictorialism, full of, you know, sentimental subject matter repeated over and over. And that repelled me because it was just a serious of clichés. And what I wanted—what I wanted to show was real today people and the things that were going on. Well, it happened that just about that time I got some money from the job that I had at the university. At that time I was art editor.
[00:10:02]
And I had put that aside and I had an interest in my ancestry, my forebearers. And American seemed like an awfully raw, crude sort of civilization to me. I was real curious as to what was my background like, so I decided to take a trip to Europe. There wasn't any work to be found in Chicago anyway.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: So, I took the savings, and my mother gave me a little bit, and I spent just about—well, about eight or 10 months over there, visited several countries. I visited France and Switzerland, Austria, and Hungary. Hungary is where, actually, most of my relatives lived that were there. And I went to school of graphic arts in Vienna, [inaudible]. That time, of course, I had no idea that I was going to become a photographer. That wasn't one of my primary interests really. It was just a subsidiary interest. Mostly the whole graphic field of printing and design, typography, as well as photography, were things that I was interested in. And when I was very young I was of course thinking in terms of becoming a cartoonist. But again, of course, I realized that I didn't have the abilities to become a cartoonist. I was just groping for what type of profession I would fall into.
I did have a job at the—it was the Chicago Times it was called—a tabloid. And I prepared most of their promotion material. I did the layouts for it. I even wrote the topic for it. Occasionally I did some simple drawings for it. And it was as a result of that folding up that I was thrown out of work completely and decided to go to Europe. And when I did go to Europe I was more or less oriented a little bit toward advertising and that sort of thing.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: But I was a—what do they call it, not a full-time student but a guest student, and visited various methods of reproduction classes and [off-set, gravure –Ed.], letter press, setting type, and so forth and so on. And of course, I considered that a very decisive and important influence. I went around taking pictures of Vienna, somewhat hip to the manner of Atget. Scenes of buildings, and not too much of people though because I was rather timid about people. I took the many shots of store scenes, you know. I was always intrigued, I even am to this day, by the things that are shown in the store windows, of whatever kind. To me it's an index of civilization actually.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: You can tell a great deal about the values of any given society by what they're selling and how they put these things into their windows. So, for years and years I've been fascinated by shop windows and did quite a few shop windows while I was there in Vienna. Well, then I came back to Chicago, still unemployed. And I had a friend in Washington, D.C. working at the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. He sent me a telegram, asked me if I wanted a job there. Well, obviously [laughs] I wanted a job. I had no work. [Richard K. Doud laughs.] I couldn't find it—any full-time employment. I would take a few weeks, say work at Sears Roebuck and help them lay out pages for their catalog or some of their direct mail pieces and things like that, but no steady employment.
So, [the obvious thing was to leave –Ed.] Chicago. I left my mother behind and my—I mean, excuse me, to Washington. So, I left my mother behind and went to what was then called the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. And there wasn't any photographic work done there. I started out simply as a chart draftsman. Month after month I turned out charts which showed various states, county by county, as to the percentage of people who were on relief rolls.
[00:15:10]
I had to develop the four or five kinds of cross-hatching that would indicate over 50 percent and then all the other gradients [Richard K. Doud laughs] down to—well, there wasn't any, I guess, less than about 10 percent. And so, I went—and of course there was others working with me on the same thing. And that was our main job was bringing—making these statistical maps of unemployment.
Now, how it happened that I got into photography was, I guess, an accident. I [bought a Leica –Ed.], I think, while I was in Washington, I took a few pictures. And I took those into my boss and [inaudible] Fred Severe [ph]. And he introduced me to somebody who was in the Social Security—well, it wasn't called the Social Security administration, it was a committee that was studying the setting up of a Social Security agency. And somebody over there—name was Schnap [ph] or Shapp [ph], Morris Schnap [ph] or something like that—he heard about me and he saw some of the shots I'd taken, and liked them. So, I was loaned to them for a little while to take pictures showing some of the problems related to Social Security. I took pictures, for example, inside [ph] of a woman who was supposed to be widowed and she was working at a laundry and had a couple of kids dependent on them. And I showed a number of shots—incidentally later, if you want to, I still have some prints of these—
RICHARD K. DOUD: I'd like to see them.
THEODOR JUNG: —showing a man who was one-legged walking across tracks, another problem that—and then I took—I went to a hospital, took pictures of some of the people that were ill, another form of insecurity, illness. And then I took some slum shots in the Negro district. I don't recollect whether that was a part of that project or related to something else in the FERA. But I took some of the Negro slum homes and some interiors. So, that was actually the first use. I also had a Rolleiflex. And these were all taken with the Rolleiflex. That was the first use that I made of the camera in, you might say, a practical sense. That is, I had no real aesthetic intentions.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Yeah.
THEODOR JUNG: I mean, I was not trying to produce pictures for a sense of beauty or contemplation, but to mirror a condition that I was emotionally involved in.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: I felt that these pictures would help to persuade people that we needed Social Security and that would help forward the necessary legislation. Then around here is where there's a gap in memory. I don't know who it was that told me that there was somebody over at Resettlement Administration that had an opening, or was interested in this kind of photography. Whoever it was, I can't recollect. But anyway, one day I found myself over there. I think it was in the big Department of Agriculture main building that I was talking to Roy Stryker.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: So, I showed him the things I had there. And he was evidently favorably impressed, sufficiently to hire me. At that time as I recollect, he had only one man and that was John—I mean that was Arthur Rothstein. I met Arthur.
RICHARD K. DOUD: When was this? Do you remember?
THEODOR JUNG: The year, it was, I can say almost exactly—let's see, 30—let's see, '34, I would say 1934.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
[00:19:55]
THEODOR JUNG: I can't tell exactly what time of the year, but I think it was toward the fall. That's what I recollect. So, I switched from—the work was fairly dull, you know, over at FERA.
RICHARD K. DOUD: [Laughs.] I would imagine.
THEODOR JUNG: [Primarily it was just the –Ed.]—it did get a little bit more interesting because we went over from strictly bar charts and shaded to pictorial statistics—
RICHARD K. DOUD: Yeah.
THEODOR JUNG: —type of thing that was originally developed in Vienna by a man named Otto [inaudible]. That made it a little bit more interesting. But the opportunities of a more creative kind of work with a little bit more freedom—and it just captured my imagination, I guess—was what caused me to transfer from the Federal Emergency—by that time it had been called the Works Project Administration. So, I transferred from Works Project Administration over to the then Resettlement Administration.
Now I guess I'll have to sort of do a little thinking. It might kind of [inaudible]. It wasn't too long—and these memories are going to be a little bit inchoate, shall we say, a little shuffled—that I met Carl Mydans. And Mydans was working at that time, as you probably got the record already, for the housing part of the Resettlement Administration, and shooting enormous quantities of film. I remember how amazed I was. He'd come in with just yards and yards and yards and yards of this film. It was just like—sort of like [Laocoan –Ed.] had to work through and collect and cut.
And I think I was—one of the first trips that I was sent to was to Maryland. There was a project there. People were thrown out of work because of the fact that the mining had finished there. And people were living on quite a poverty level. And they were one of the features of the program, which was to resettle people. That was of course where it got named. That was only of course one of the things. These people needed resettling. And the pictures I took showed why they needed it. The bareness of the soil was impossible for them to make a decent living in agriculture. And the mining was all mined out. So, I went into the homes and I showed the bareness of the living, the little possessions that they had. And yet I had, of course, a certain admiration. A good many of them made very strong efforts to live in a clean, tidy, very orderly manner despite their extreme poverty.
And—oh yeah, I remember the project manager was man by the name of Curts [ph]. I guess I spent about a week there, showing the homes inside and out and the surrounding terrain. And I submitted the pictures to Mr. Curts [ph]. And he thought I'd covered them—covered the situation quite well. So [inaudible] let's see, no, I—that's incorrect. The pictures were sent back later. Even from the first, as I remember, we didn't get to do our processing and our enlarging and [contact prints –Ed.] So, this is one of the things that sort of really did irritate me. [Laughs.] I really got pretty mad at Roy at the fact that we weren't allowed to do our own processing. It seemed so important to—in order to bring out, you know, the qualities that there were in the picture that we should do this.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Sure.
THEODOR JUNG: And it wasn't until years later that I was able to see his point of view. I would occasionally sneak into the dark room on a Sunday in order to do my [they laugh] film and contact printing and some enlarging. However, he found about—out about that, and I was banished. Somewhere along the line there was added—were several other people added. There was—Walker Evans came in. I don't recollect of course the actual time. But he told me something about work that Brady had done, with whose work I'd been completely unfamiliar up to that time.
[00:25:07]
And some time later I went to the archives of the War Department to see the Brady prints. He was a very shy man. He didn't talk too much. And I didn't get to talk to him a very great deal. Most of us were out. And there wasn't too much actually as I recollect of getting together and of the interchange of ideas, at least I don't recollect except just very briefly. And I don't think that I was too much impressed or influenced by anybody except by Ben Shahn and then not—you know, in a—not in a sense of trying to copy.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: I guess I just had a lot of admiration for the success with which he was able to show the trials and tribulations that our people were going through of the—you know, the lower strata. And I was also sort of impressed by the lack of anecdote, and yet at the same time how much feeling there was in them. Now Rothstein, his pictures always had some sort of story theme.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Yeah.
THEODOR JUNG: But not Ben. He'd just take the people just as they were standing, stock-still right in front of their house there. And yet they were eloquent. I often wondered how and why they were.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Could I ask you just—
THEODOR JUNG: Sure.
RICHARD K. DOUD: —sort of interrupt?
THEODOR JUNG: Yeah. Go ahead.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Did—
THEODOR JUNG: Whenever you feel there's anything you want to say, you go ahead freely and ask questions.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Did—anywhere along the line did you see or did anyone mention to you the pictures of Lewis Hine, the—
THEODOR JUNG: Yes. Somewhere—now, I can't recollect how the dickens that came into my life. But I did see a few of his pictures, I think it was in the Survey Graphic. Now, that was a very good and important magazine. And I believe, and my recollection may be incorrect, but that's where I first came across some of his pictures of the children working in the mills.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: I remember admiring very much. And I felt there was a kinship in his aims and those, of course, of the Farm Security Administration, which was to use photography primarily for social means, in other words for ridding ourselves of some of the inequalities, inequities in American life.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Did you ever think of this as propaganda at the time?
THEODOR JUNG: I—well, let's see. I was aware that people—those who were against the program were calling it propaganda. But I thought of it as information.
RICHARD K. DOUD: [Laughs.] Depends on which side of the fence you were on.
THEODOR JUNG: Yeah. That's right. But I do think that we were always—we tried at least to be honest. I don't think we tried to overdo or to exaggerate. We just wanted—we thought that the stark facts were enough to move people. And of course I was aware that we weren't just taking pictures for a file or for museums, but they were going to be used in articles in newspapers and throughout various types of mass media.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: And I was happy that they were. I never had, I guess, what you might say a [purely aesthetic attitude –Ed.] toward photography. I did enjoy pictures of other people's that you might say were just purely aesthetic or decorative, like Man Ray, for example, the experimentalist, or Sheeler and some of those others. But personally, it was a vehicle for expressing the social ideal. And Washington was the place to do it at that time. And I could do it better from photography than anything else. Other people could do it with writing.
RICHARD K. DOUD: I think that, it seems to me anyway, that this was sort of common with the photographers who worked under Stryker, that their interest was in expressing some sort of a social awareness or social responsibility rather than the aesthetic aspects of photography.
[00:30:00]
They all felt that they were committed to say something about a situation and were trying to say it in a way that would somehow alleviate the situation. Photography was not an art in the sense that it was expressing a sort of philosophy or something, but it was expressing a concern for an immediate condition. I think what you said then ties in pretty well with what I feel most of the photographers [inaudible]—
[Cross talk.]
THEODOR JUNG: Have they told you this—
RICHARD K. DOUD: Yes.
THEODOR JUNG: [Inaudible.]
RICHARD K. DOUD: Not in so many words.
THEODOR JUNG: I was aware of it through their pictures rather than through—
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Yeah. If not in so many words, at least they've implied this—
THEODOR JUNG: Yeah.
RICHARD K. DOUD: —that they weren't trying to be artists in the aesthetic sense, but certainly they were trying to be spokesmen, perhaps, for a better world.
THEODOR JUNG: That's right, yeah. That's right. I think that's quite true.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Maybe they didn't even verbalize it to themselves at the time, but they certainly—I think looking back they—
THEODOR JUNG: I don't think we did too much verbalizing about it. We didn't—we didn't get together too much, I don't think, for—I guess we were too busy for mutual interchange of ideas. Ben was the one closest I think to doing some verbalizing. And I do think that he actually said in some ways to avoid aestheticism—
RICHARD K. DOUD: Really?
THEODOR JUNG: —or that he was conscious that he was avoiding it. And that he—that was his philosophy. Perhaps that had some impact on me, although I don't—although it came to me naturally anyway, at least he expressed it in verbal terms.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Sort of said it for all of you.
THEODOR JUNG: Yeah. That's right. Yeah.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Well, how was it then that you became sort of, I don't know—addicted is the wrong word—but 35 millimeter was pretty much your tool, I think, at the time.
THEODOR JUNG: Well, that was again I think rather accidental. We were supposed to get other equipment. And when I started out I happened to have a 35. I've forgotten just when I got my—I guess I had my Rollie too. I think it was just the fact that it was so easy and unobtrusive—
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: —and you could take so many more pictures with it.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Yeah. It was convenience then—
THEODOR JUNG: Yeah.
RICHARD K. DOUD: —rather than—
THEODOR JUNG: Yeah. I'm sure there were no—I mean, if I could have taken as many pictures as rapidly with a big camera, I would have used a big camera.
RICHARD K. DOUD: I see.
THEODOR JUNG: That—also of course the spontaneity. You can't very easily take pictures of people unobtrusively, in motion, with a four by—I mean a five by 10 or a view camera as you can with a 35.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Sure.
THEODOR JUNG: It got a little more of the—you know, the flavor and movement of people.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: And of course, the view camera's ideal for setups, architectural, and other kinds of studies that we had to make, like say timber or farmlands and things like that, the four by five was ideal. And I would have used a bigger camera for that type of thing if it had been available. Just happened at that time I took everything with 35 because that's all I had when I first started.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Well, you mentioned before we started this that—
THEODOR JUNG: Let see. I guess I ought to mention Erich Salomon was perhaps one of the first users of the 35. And I do recollect having seen some of his, which indicated that it was an ideal instrument for, you know, the unobserved—the decisive moment as Bresson calls it.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Uh-huh [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: Yeah.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Well, Ben Shahn was telling me that he used a right-angle viewfinder too.
THEODOR JUNG: I used that too.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Did you?
THEODOR JUNG: Yeah.
RICHARD K. DOUD: I wondered if you did.
THEODOR JUNG: That's right. Mm-hmm [affirmative]. That came in very handle. It was very fine.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Yeah. Even—
THEODOR JUNG: Yeah.
RICHARD K. DOUD: —furthered the advantages of the 35.
THEODOR JUNG: That's right. People were disarmed. They thought they were looking the other way and they were naturally more natural.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Sure.
THEODOR JUNG: They didn't freeze and went on about their—whatever they were doing.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Would you like to tell me a little bit about the other chores you had with the section than photography? You mentioned [inaudible].
THEODOR JUNG: Yeah. Well, I was sort of a handyman. I'm quite sure I wasn't quite as adept in handling the camera as most of the other members were. Others—the others had I think considerable more experience over a longer period of time.
[00:35:01]
So, my pictures, I think I should confess, probably didn't have as good a bag as say a Rothstein, didn't have a high percentage of good pictures, so which consequently made Roy think of using me in other ways while I was there. So, there were publications now and then that had to be designed. I knew a little bit about type. And I actually have here—I think I have here—you might turn that off for a second while I hunt for it. I designed a little pamphlet I would say maybe 32 pages to 64 pages about the aims and purposes of the Resettlement Administration. And I designed the cover, made out the contents, marked it up for type and headings, and laid out the illustrations. Turned out quite successfully, so that whenever occasion arose for a newer publication, why it was turned over to me for layout and design.
Then as I mentioned before, there was all the business of taking care of the files. And I think I've forgotten who actually mounted the photographs, but I remember spending many hours in writing the captions for the photographs. Other people's captions and my own captions that went at the top.
RICHARD K. DOUD: How did you write captions for other people's photographs?
THEODOR JUNG: They provided us—well, sometimes somebody would be there like Carl Mydans and—
RICHARD K. DOUD: I see.
THEODOR JUNG: —he would tell you. But usually you were furnished a typewritten set of headings that were—that identified the picture.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: They always had, you know, a number, Resettlement so and so, frame so and so, and where it was taken and what the subject was. Most of the time this was on a typescript of some sort.
Now, let's see. Then I do remember working a little bit on a couple of exhibits. One exhibit was of our work that was gotten together for, I guess it was the first exhibit of Leica photography in New York City. And I remember getting that together and organizing it and writing signs for it to go with that. Then we had a number of little traveling exhibits. I don't recollect, unfortunately, too well what the content of it was, but I remember we used big blow-ups. And I did some of the lettering for those things that would be relating, I think, to various phases of the program. We naturally covered some of the things like—well, for the suburban Resettlement Program, for example—
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: —might have done some panels showing what was done at Greenbelt and Green Hills and some of the other projects. I guess you're pretty familiar with the various phases of the program. It wasn't just resettlement alone.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Yeah. Mm-hmm [affirmative]. And—
THEODOR JUNG: And then another that—thing that—of course that I was pretty passionate about was the destroyal of our natural resources. And I remember going out on one of these trips—maybe it was in connection with Maryland—just seeing acre after acre of nothing but stumps there in old—the—many of the trees just laying—having been cut and left behind and burned over. And this was one of the things that I felt, well, of course, was very important conservation of natural resources in this country—
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: —which has been neglected for so long. There were probably some exhibits, I'm sure, on that subject of reforestation and conservation.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Who was in charge of exhibits at that time? Do you remember?
THEODOR JUNG: Well, they—there wasn't really anybody I don't think in charge, although further along they hired a fellow by the name of Milton Tinsley. And I think he became—he was in charge at least of the physical aspect of it.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: He was an advertising artist. Milton Tinsley.
[00:39:54]
RICHARD K. DOUD: Yeah. I've heard the name, but I've not seen—
THEODOR JUNG: Milton came to visit me in Denver. Oh, he was thinking of setting up a shop. He went into business independently in the exhibit business in Washington after New Deal days.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Is he still there?
THEODOR JUNG: He's still there.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Good.
THEODOR JUNG: And he has a shop quite similar to my old boss—boss later on by the name of Leonard Rennie, when I was with the War Food Administration. And there we prepared quite a lot of exhibits. And Rennie—after the war he set up an independent unit for doing primarily exhibits but also other types of visual media.
RICHARD K. DOUD: But when you were working there—you were fairly early in the game— were you people in the field allowed the freedom that seemed to be a mark of this whole thing later on as far as—
THEODOR JUNG: Well, we had certain definite assignments we would take care of. Like for example, I had to—let's see, this was, I think, in Indiana. I had to show a resettlement man talking with a farmer and they're there looking over the program. And this would be, and was, used as a news shot.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: So, there were a few definite things that you were expected to cover. That had definite news angles to it. But outside of that, why then you were pretty much on your own. In addition to the directives that you got, either from either Stryker or one of the four units there that wanted to cover special aspects, then you could take pictures that interested you or that you felt were a part of telling the story of rural America.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: So, there was a good deal of latitude and freedom in that respect.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Well, I'd like to have your opinion on how the section got away with this type of thing. They—
THEODOR JUNG: I would be—like to know myself. [Richard K. Doud laughs.] Because—
RICHARD K. DOUD: They—it wasn't part of their job. Their specification was not—you know, they were to do assignments of course.
THEODOR JUNG: Yeah.
RICHARD K. DOUD: But this freedom you mentioned—
THEODOR JUNG: Yeah.
RICHARD K. DOUD: —showing the face of America—
THEODOR JUNG: Well, this was part of the liberal, I think, attitude of all the New Deal agencies.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: They give you credit for using your intelligence. And there was just a general feeling there of morale of this kind that I have never felt anywhere that I've ever worked since, and I don't think we'll ever recapture, of intellectual curiosity. And you were given freedom to investigate the—went to unusual length. I don't know whether this set of pictures ever got in, but I know that Rothstein took a set of pictures in a whorehouse somewhere [laughs] on one—on his trips.
RICHARD K. DOUD: They might very well be in the file.
THEODOR JUNG: I don't know whether they were included or censored or what. But that just shows you how far [they laugh]—how a person's involvement in the total picture of life in—well, I suppose this would have been—couldn't have been rural. This would have been—have to have been in a small town. I don't think we did anything of the big cities, at least—
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: Well, maybe there were. Now I recollect a few shots here and there of big city scenes. But they were rather in the minority.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Now, was—this series of Rothstein's you mentioned, was this intellectual curiosity or emotional curiosity [laughs]?
THEODOR JUNG: Well, I wouldn't [laughs]—I really—I don't know. [They laugh.] I think that was perhaps a combination of the two. But I mean the sordid side of life we all felt in that it shouldn't be covered it. It should be shown. It was legitimate because it's a part of the American scene.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Sure.
THEODOR JUNG: So, we didn't really draw the line for any moral reasons or for, you know, reasons of censorship. We probably knew that they wouldn't get published, but at least they had a place in the file.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: And any subject matter also that might be considered taboo would perhaps be included. I didn't—I personally never went out of my way. I was really a bit too shy to have undertaken something quite as unusual as that.
[00:45:12]
But I do remember that there were shots—like Ben would get of not evidences but hints of police brutality, for example, and features of American life that we've disapproved of, and felt that should be unmasked.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Did you meet with any resistance to what you were doing? Any reluctance on the part of the people to being photographed by the government?
THEODOR JUNG: Well, I—in general I—most of the time I found quite a surprising amount of cooperation, at least while I was on the Project. Later on, during the war time, then there was some resistance. I think it was just because people thought anybody with a camera had a spy. And I was taking pictures—this was long after the Project—of slum conditions in Washington for the National Council of Churches. And I'd get into slum areas and people would call up the police—
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: —and tell them that I was a—some suspicious character. In fact, I got—I got taken to the—to the police station and I had to be exonerated by Reverend—oh, what the devil was his name. I've forgotten who it was. A very socially alert member of the National Council of Churches. He had to get me off the hook by telling the cops that I was okay, was working under the jurisdiction of—my—most of my experiences while I was with Resettlement there wasn't—I don't recollect of any hostility.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: Now, some of the other people like Ben got perhaps in a territory in the South where might have been among the whites perhaps some reluctance about taking pictures of conditions [the Negros were living in –Ed.], or something like that. But I didn't get into the South at all—
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: —so I had almost 100 percent cooperation. Just as long as you explained to people what was the purpose and what—why we were doing this, they were very happy to cooperate, and did anything they could to make it comfortable for you.
RICHARD K. DOUD: So, do you think that the public at large understood and/or appreciated what you were doing with—
THEODOR JUNG: A big broad—
RICHARD K. DOUD: The big broad public.
THEODOR JUNG: [Inaudible.]
RICHARD K. DOUD: The other—the upper two-thirds, do you think the people were in general favorable to this type of documentation? Was the press favorable?
THEODOR JUNG: Well, I would—the press, of course, I think, was definitely receptive and favorable, in general I would say. I don't have too much information about the media that used our pictures. But I should imagine that—I would say the—still, they had their own photographers. Neither Look nor LIFE, I guess, would make much use of our pictures because they had their own photographers. So, must have been mostly rotogravure sections. And that's my recollection is that reviewer sections of newspapers was one of our chief uses of photographs.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Was wondering about, I think in general the—
THEODOR JUNG: And this—
RICHARD K. DOUD: —press, at that time anyway, was sort of republican and I was wondering how [they would accept it –Ed.].
THEODOR JUNG: Well, of course you have been told the famous story about the skull, so—
RICHARD K. DOUD: Oh, yes.
THEODOR JUNG: —that's the—
RICHARD K. DOUD: Yes. That's the classic.
THEODOR JUNG: Yeah. Classic. But there were more liberal newspapers, which probably didn't draw the line, I think like the—well, the New York Times I think—I'm pretty sure used a spread, and let's say the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, there were a number of libral magazines. Books also. Now that's something I had forgotten about. I remember several of my shots were in sociological textbooks. And that I would imagine would be a—not maybe great numbers of them, but that was one of the good ways which our pictures were used.
[00:50:04]
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. In general—
THEODOR JUNG: [Inaudible.]
RICHARD K. DOUD: In general, then do you think you could say that what you were doing was successful in terms of making people aware through exhibits, through publication of one sort or another, that the effort was worth what it cost in terms of time and money?
THEODOR JUNG: I don't think that it got as widely [disseminated as –Ed.] it should have in all probability, just due to reluctance on the part—you know, political opposition.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Yeah. Did you feel a lot of this opposition or was—
THEODOR JUNG: No, not too much. I—let's see, how would I say that? I just realized of course that there was a very large section of the press that was highly critical of the New Deal, and would naturally tend to run stories which were critical and often cast an, I think, unfair criticism about what—well, the whole overall program as well as of course FSA was only one of many things that was opposed.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Who do you feel—
THEODOR JUNG: I—well, just wishing, and I guess I suppose now that I look back on it that they did have a much wider actual distribution than they probably had. But at the time it seemed sufficient; I guess we weren't too conscious of how many newspapers were using it. We were out there to take the pictures, and those other peoples' job to make—
RICHARD K. DOUD: Yeah.
THEODOR JUNG: —that they got into the proper channels.
RICHARD K. DOUD: You had your own problems.
THEODOR JUNG: Yeah. That's right.
RICHARD K. DOUD: What do you feel was the greatest influence of this whole experience on you personally? What was the greatest benefit you reaped from having been associated with this? What did you learn?
THEODOR JUNG: Well, I guess I sort of became aware of society as a whole, I'm guessing, and somewhat about how it worked. And I became aware of the everyday life of America as a living thing. As this has been kind of—I'd have to almost sit down and think and [they laugh] write this out. But I guess I hadn't thought too much as I would go about before of what I saw or analyze. But now I have a tool with which I could sort of analyze America's goals and aims.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: And of course, this is a proverbial [ph] yardstick. And even today I will get indignant about the fact they’re putting up expensive apartment houses and not putting in any low-cost housing.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Sure.
THEODOR JUNG: And I try to express it in as many ways—in as small ways, as I can. I'll write congressmen about passing Medicare. All forms of progressive legislation which I think are of benefit to make America a more humane place to live in.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: And of course there—my knowledge about what is going on in Europe has always made me much more conscious about American defects—
RICHARD K. DOUD: Yeah.
THEODOR JUNG: —than the ordinary American who doesn't know that Europe did these things long before we ever did, and is doing them on a much broader scale, in much poorer countries than we are.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: And if I had the chance to do this again, I would like nothing better than if there were another unit of this kind set up to do the same thing for the Johnson administration that we did for the Roosevelt administration. I would consider that a—I'd leave—I'd drop everything that I'm doing now and join. Of course, I realize that the years have intervened. I couldn't be as quick perhaps, but I think I would be a much better photographer than I was at that time. And I would be very strongly in favor of setting up some unit of this kind.
[00:55:20]
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: Not only to document of course the shadows as we did, but also in three-dimensional, back and forth, the good things as well as the bad things, show how the middle classes lived too—
RICHARD K. DOUD: Sure.
THEODOR JUNG: —not just the poor class. We were just concerned with the outcasts and the depressed population but I think it should be rounded out, show how the middle class live, how the wealthy live—
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: —what they do for their entertainment. And also of course it should be broadened to include urban life as well, and the reason for—I mean, our problems aren't purely rural by any means. A great many of them are becoming more and more industrial problems, urban problems.
RICHARD K. DOUD: I think so too. We are becoming an urban civilization—
THEODOR JUNG: Yeah.
RICHARD K. DOUD: —therefore our problems are—
THEODOR JUNG: Yeah, that's right.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Well, how did this influence your career as a photographer?
THEODOR JUNG: Unfortunately, of course, the kind of photography which I wanted to do went out with the New Deal. There wasn't hardly any market for it. And I wasn't interested in just becoming a photojournalist like Carl and Arthur—
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: —and John. So, I just more or less abandoned—oh, for a good many years and didn't do hardly any photography at all. And then I sort of took it up again more or less as a—for recreation to get me out and looking around again.
RICHARD K. DOUD: I'd be interested to know if in your travels across the country, in your workings with people in various areas, if you were aware of any characteristics that were common or perhaps you might say American characteristics, or characteristics that you would find or might expect in people whether they lived in Maryland or they lived in Ohio or—
THEODOR JUNG: You mean common or uniform characteristics?
RICHARD K. DOUD: Yes. Were we in any sense—
THEODOR JUNG: Homogenous?
RICHARD K. DOUD: —homogenous or?
THEODOR JUNG: Or, is that homogenous or—
RICHARD K. DOUD: Were we—were we individualistic? Was there—was there anything you could say that would make a man—
THEODOR JUNG: Well, we're a lot more informal and spontaneous and friendly then say the Europeans. On the other hand, we're a hell of a lot more intolerant also. We've got much more capacity for hostility. We hate the dissenter and nonconformism. Those are the—seem to me more or less the things that differentiate us from say old world culture in general. The British, of course, they're rather cold and aloof. And they're hard to get to know, to talk to. Whereas we, wherever we are we'll talk with anybody. We don't put on airs. We don't have any, at least theoretical, upper classes, although we actually have, but they don't act like it.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: [Inaudible] in a democratic fashion. There's the—of course, another, I think, very strong characteristic of Americans is they're always—their tendency toward optimism. And sometimes I think it's a facile optimism. We hate to admit there are defects in our society, so we pretend that they don't exist.
RICHARD K. DOUD: I see. Yeah. The question—I think you've answered part of it already. We mentioned—or you've mentioned a number of the aspects of the file that were good and presenting the problem and that sort of thing. What do you think could have been done to make this whole operation better? What were your criticisms at—
THEODOR JUNG: We could have—
RICHARD K. DOUD: —the time of what you were doing, or how you were operating?
THEODOR JUNG: I must say the—wouldn't have too many criticisms, in our—let's say our morale or our working conditions. If I were to have thought about it consciously at that time I would have only said the only thing needed was to expand it.
[01:00:04]
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: To make it include, you know, the urban picture of America. More—I always felt there should have been more films turned out. Because I always felt they had a potentially much bigger audience than photographs. I would have expanded the film unit considerably. And of course I'd like to—well, I'd like to put all these things on a permanent basis instead of just on a depression basis.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Sure.
THEODOR JUNG: Because I think these are eternal values that we're concerned that shouldn't be determined on the state of the economy. Unfortunate that this great flowering of culture which occurred at that time came about as a result of profound suffering all over. And I don't think that it should be based upon that. I think it should continue in good days as well as bad days.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Well, let's take the fact of the physical file now as having been just a terminal, thing so to speak. It started here. It went so many years and it ended here. And today it's sort of a chunk of time. What value do you think this file of pictures has, and how could it best be used now?
THEODOR JUNG: [Inaudible.]
RICHARD K. DOUD: Is it valuable? Is it worth keeping, worth considering, worth all the effort putting into it?
THEODOR JUNG: Now that it's all over with—well, it would be of course a—well, this recent exhibit, you must have heard of that, The Bitter Years—
RICHARD K. DOUD: Yes.
THEODOR JUNG: —that was I think a very important thing that that traveled around the country and reminded people of the Depression, which is I think—which most of us have forgotten it. And those of us that didn't go through it, why, hardly aware of its existence—
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: —and that it may happen again. It isn't impossible. And it should be there as a warning.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: And all—I would say also perhaps an example of what ought to be done in the future on a larger scale.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Do you think it has anything to say to young photographers or aspiring photographers? Does it—does it have any examples of—to offer on how to take pictures? Could it be used as sort of a—in any sense a guide to what pictures might be? [Laughs.]
THEODOR JUNG: I think it's a very hardy antidote to what is still, I think, the curse of amateur photography, which is pictorialism. But whether—I'm afraid it wouldn't have much effect upon people if they—again, this what I call facile optimism, look only at pretty things. and avoid anything—
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: —that's real and living even—but certainly I would much rather see camera clubs go out, all of them, and show their life and the life of the people around them rather than these pretty stilted things that they show at these camera clubs.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Close-up of a flower or—
THEODOR JUNG: Yeah. Or babies, or cute kittens. Or—
RICHARD K. DOUD: Yeah.
THEODOR JUNG: Or an old man in a sou'wester, or any guy with a beard. That was just—subject they'd show over, over, and over again. They're really pretty wasteful, I think, of film and time. But to actually win these people over to looking at what they see around them, I'm rather dubious about whether it could be done. I think it should be done. I think that it might help to start some people going around to various—
[END OF TRACK AAA_jung65_8712_m.]
RICHARD K. DOUD: Would you think that the best approach would be to mount exhibits along the lines of The Bitter Years? Or—
THEODOR JUNG: One of the most important things, and don't—I'm still wondering why it hasn't been done—is it to bring out a good, big book of the FSA photographs. Say, 3[00] or 400 photographs from there.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. One of the problems, I think, with an exhibit like The Bitter Years is that, at least as far as exploiting the file, is that, to me, it gives the sort of false impression of what the FSA file really is. The Bitter Years really is a pretty hard show.
[Cross talk.]
THEODOR JUNG: Oh, it takes—
RICHARD K. DOUD: The file is very, very—
THEODOR JUNG: It's much more, varied, diversified than the small selection from it. Yes.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Yes. And I think that—
THEODOR JUNG: Yeah, that's right, it does give a false picture. Mm-hmm [affirmative].
RICHARD K. DOUD: I don't know whether, along with this show, there's any sort of implication that this is only part of the '30s or not. But I'm afraid that people seeing the show feel that this was all there was to be said by government photographers and I personally know that there is much beauty—
[Cross talk.]
THEODOR JUNG: Oh, yeah. That's right.
RICHARD K. DOUD: —and much good news and much hope in the file.
THEODOR JUNG: Yeah. Oh, mainly missing, I think, was the element of humor. There was an awful lot of, I think, really good funny pictures in the file. At least I remember quite a few. That's left out entirely. And, of course, the wonderful scenic shots of America, too.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: Those were used, of course, in other publications, particularly, you know, the various state handbooks. Awful lot of our pictures that got into those handbooks.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Yes. WPA Guides.
THEODOR JUNG: Yeah. Yeah, that's right.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Uh-huh [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: Yeah. Well, yeah, I—if—I think that would be a good thing to have an exhibit which was more comprehensive and showed more facets of what the files contain. Of course, a book could do that also.
RICHARD K. DOUD: The problem—one of the problems—
THEODOR JUNG: Another, I guess lack or hiatus [ph] is the fact that no pictures were probably taken of prosperous farms or farmers. Or were there? Now this I didn't—
RICHARD K. DOUD: Yes. Now—
[Cross talk.]
THEODOR JUNG: Was a little of that? I don't recollect myself.
RICHARD K. DOUD: I think that probably you left too soon.
THEODOR JUNG: Oh. Mm-hmm [affirmative].
RICHARD K. DOUD: Later on, this was a definite point that was made, and was reflected later in a definite mode of change in the direction of the file, that the accent in the earlier years had been really on poverty and deprivation and it was felt that, look, if you're going out of the way to take a picture of the face of America, let's do the whole job and let's show that all farmers aren't living in tumble-down shacks.
THEODOR JUNG: Yeah. Yeah.
RICHARD K. DOUD: I think later on there was a good deal of this showing of more normal conditions. And they never reached the point, of course, where they dealt to any great extent with the wealthy, but they did show that America had something other than [laughs] depressed farmers.
THEODOR JUNG: Uh-huh [affirmative]. Wow.
RICHARD K. DOUD: This was an important thing. I suppose some of these stories are apocryphal about Germans wanting the pictures from the file, hoping to show that America was decadent [ph] and deteriorating.
THEODOR JUNG: Oh, no.
RICHARD K. DOUD: And they were able to bring out pictures of—
THEODOR JUNG: The Russians, I think, would have probably been also good customers [they laugh] for pictures of [inaudible].
RICHARD K. DOUD: I'm sure they would have, yeah. But I think this is one of the problems now with doing something with the file is that, really the impression is that it's a pretty morbid group of pictures.
THEODOR JUNG: It's what?
RICHARD K. DOUD: A pretty morbid group of pictures.
THEODOR JUNG: Oh. Oh. Oh.
RICHARD K. DOUD: And an effort must be made to show that versatility.
[00:05:01]
THEODOR JUNG: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Mm-hmm [affirmative].
RICHARD K. DOUD: And I think it's important, too, to—although there is a lot of—
THEODOR JUNG: Now, isn't there something of a creative rural life? Now, remember, I took a series of pictures—I guess this was for Agriculture, and not FSA—of rural handicrafts that were very beautiful, showing the different things that were done in the Highlands. Were—did any of those—that type of thing get into the FSA files? If it didn't, it certainly missed an important aspect of rural life.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Well, a number of things were done along the lines of following various trades. In other words, in the field of production of goods from raw materials, through the various stages to finished product types, and this sort of thing, where it wasn't—
THEODOR JUNG: You mean like canned goods?
RICHARD K. DOUD: Yeah. Or from wheat to bread.
THEODOR JUNG: Oh, okay.
RICHARD K. DOUD: And from ore to—
THEODOR JUNG: Oh, I see. Yeah.
RICHARD K. DOUD: —to metal. And this sort of thing. There was a certain amount of that going on. There were—
THEODOR JUNG: I see. Because I was thinking more in terms of the individual with the [latent creative ability –Ed.]—whittling, turned out some interesting sculpture—
RICHARD K. DOUD: Oh. Oh, I don't know.
THEODOR JUNG: —or weaving and hook rugs, and quite a lot of nice things were done in the eastern highlands at this time.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Uh-huh [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: It think it would compare well with some nice handicrafts in Europe.
RICHARD K. DOUD: I don't know how much that sort of—
[Crosstalk.]
THEODOR JUNG: I think that might have been missed.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Well, I'm sure a lot was missed.
THEODOR JUNG: Yeah.
RICHARD K. DOUD: We must admit a lot of what was captured too. Well, can you think of anything else that we should—
THEODOR JUNG: Well, let's see what—
RICHARD K. DOUD: —should say?
THEODOR JUNG: Did we—well—[if the file had a value today –Ed.]—might as well turn it off for a second.
[Audio break.]
RICHARD K. DOUD: This—this suggestion you were making about—
THEODOR JUNG: It seems to me that somewhere in this country there should be a museum that is dedicated to this social and economic life of contemporary America, which would consist not only of photographs—which would be a very important part of the exhibit—but possibly also of models, dioramas, pictorial statistical charts, and, of course, captions, to show what America is like today. Its composition, racially, for example, by industry, what percentage of the people are in various industries, where they come from, groupings of within our—shall we say income groups by various levels. And then examine how the various income levels live, what their income is, how they spend it, what they do with their time, on a rather—I think, on a rather large and comprehensive scale. I don't think this is being done anywhere in the United States today.
RICHARD K. DOUD: You feel this should be a government job, or should it be the job of a private foundation? It might make a difference, you know, how it was run.
THEODOR JUNG: I presume it would. Yeah, I think probably it would be best to have something like the Smithsonian. Is this—would this be sort of semi-governmental? Or is the Smithsonian completely independent?
RICHARD K. DOUD: As I understand it, the Smithsonian is non-political in a sense.
[Cross talk.]
THEODOR JUNG: Yeah, well, it certainly should be non-political.
RICHARD K. DOUD: But I—
THEODOR JUNG: Does it get any money from the government, or is it on the private? Or do you know? At any rate it ought to be free of any sort of political pressure.
[Cross talk.]
RICHARD K. DOUD: The Smithsonian is a strange and devious institution. And I don't think they're quite sure what their operation is. And I feel sure that no outsider has any idea how the Smithsonian operates. It's sort of a multi-partite operation of some sort.
[00:10:02]
Which is good, I guess, in a way in that it is outside the political influence, because even politicians don't understand how it's run.
THEODOR JUNG: Oh. Mm-hmm [affirmative].
RICHARD K. DOUD: I don't know what the association is with the government.
THEODOR JUNG: I mean, the idea I actually got from—in Vienna there is such a museum. It's called Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum, which means "museum of society and economy."
RICHARD K. DOUD: Is it a government museum?
THEODOR JUNG: It is, I think, run officially by the city of Vienna.
RICHARD K. DOUD: I see.
THEODOR JUNG: It's sponsored by the government, yes.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. But dealing with Austria?
THEODOR JUNG: Austria as a whole, yeah. That's right.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: Yeah. That's a sort of a prototype. Of course, we could do it on a much larger scale than they could with our resources, if we had the interest. And I would say that Washington would probably be the best place for it because this is the one, you know, the sort of the hub of America. There, or perhaps possibly New York. Somewhere anybody could come and see, at a glance, what a rich, varied life is in America, even at the present time. Perhaps also with leading up to it, too. You know, with maybe historical plus contemporary, which would show the development and growth of transition of this country from an agrarian society through all the steps we went through into becoming a modern industrialized and shortly an automated nation.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Well, I'm sure this thing could be carried to a limit that would include just about everything in American life. So, it would be a museum to end all museums.
[Cross talk.]
THEODOR JUNG: It would be quite a vast—quite a vast thing.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Industry and science and the arts.
THEODOR JUNG: Yeah, that's right. I wouldn't think of it necessarily—I would leave the arts, specifically, out perhaps, except in a very minor way, because there are so many art museums scattered all over the country.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Uh-huh [affirmative].
THEODOR JUNG: They have all that space that they—well, not as much as much as they need. [Laughs.] But what we really need I think is a look at ourselves in a really graphic and imaginative and stimulating way.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Certainly the FSA experience would fit nicely into something of this sort.
THEODOR JUNG: Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Well, that would be my comment about what the FSA experience could mean, would be a development into something as concrete and as on wide a scale as a museum of this type.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Well, it's an exciting suggestion. And I'd like to see something done about it. Well, you have more comments on—
THEODOR JUNG: I think we've pretty well covered most of the things, and I'm really kind surprised at how much I've been able to come up with. It sort of brought back something of that enthusiasm and intellectual ferment that was characteristic of the New Deal era.
RICHARD K. DOUD: I'm not surprised that it did. I don't know whether you are. [Theodor Jung laughs.] But I've seen it happen to others. Well, I want to thank you very much for your comments. I think you've made a contribution to this.
THEODOR JUNG: It's been very—
RICHARD K. DOUD: And we certainly appreciate it.
THEODOR JUNG: —very enjoyable and I'm very happy to be able to have had the opportunity to do this.
RICHARD K. DOUD: Oh, thank you Mr. Jung.
THEODOR JUNG: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
[END OF TRACK AAA_jung65_8713_m.]
[END OF INTERVIEW.]
