Annemarie Schwarzenbach nos EUA

Em 1937, Annemarie Schwarzenbach, uma autora de que já falámos aqui (ver O Elogio da Tristeza; O Elogio da Tristeza II; Viagem a Kafiristan) viajou até aos Estados Unidos, país que estava na altura em lenta recuperação económica, depois da Grande Depressão, para fazer várias foto-reportagens. Aqui fica um pouco desse trabalho.

(Westfront Street, Knoxville, Tennessee, 1937)

The Dark Side of Knoxville, 1937

"The vision of a better life, the American Dream, becomes more and more clouded as the road leads south. Land, parched by the long summer days, grows rusty in the dry air of poverty which has lasted for seventy years. In the great Tennessee River Valley, the blushing autumn leaves light up the hills and the red earth gushes from deep crevasses where the air and water are hollowed out of the cavities. The forests that once covered and protected the region have now disappeared, the blackened tree trunks and white pebbles are scattered throughout the meager fields that support a little corn, potato, and sugar cane, too little to feed the farmer and his family. The river flows slowly in the direction of the Ohio plains. All along the riverbanks are the traces of destruction caused by the torrential rains: crushed farmhouses, empty window frames, collapsing pillars, uprooted wooden fences, and deserted pastures.
With its one hundred thousand inhabitants, Knoxville is one of the urban centers situated in a region not favored by nature: its people have not succeeded in protecting their lands against the destructive force of the river and therefore have managed to assure themselves of an existence nothing short of miserable. The Tennessee River Valley, with a total population of two and a half million, is becoming one of the most poverty-stricken and most poorly developed regions in America. (...)"

(Annemarie Schwarzenbach)