Industry

About this artwork

At the worst point of the Great Depression, more than fifteen million American workers were unemployed. Many who continued to work struggled to support themselves and their families. In Industry, Arthur Durston painted three dispirited women in the foreground walking away from the factories, while hunched, shirtless men toil in the background. The rooftops, pipes, towering chimney stacks, and smoke plumes appear to blend together to form one giant machine, of which the distant workers are just p...