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Listen: The Latin ProgramWilliam Keye and Mary Jane Roberts making straw hats - Riviera Beach, Florida.
Image Number
Photographer
Date
Date Note
Rights
Collection
Collection number M88-73
Geographic Term
Subject Term
Ethnicity, Latin American and Caribbean
Ethnicity, Bahamian
Craft
New Deal, 1933-1939
Artisans--Florida--Palm Beach County--Riviera Beach
Material culture--Florida--Palm Beach County--Riviera Beach
Handicraft
Nature craft
Hand weaving
Braid
Bahamian Americans--Florida--Palm Beach County--Riviera Beach
Older people--Florida--Palm Beach County--Riviera Beach
Personal Subjects
Corporate Subject
Physical Description
General Note
Accompanying note: "7. plaiting the stuff from which his hat is made or laughing with Mary Jane at a visitors remark."
Biographical Note
In the summer of 1939, Works Projects Administration (WPA) photographer and artist Charles C. Foster was assigned to take photographs for Florida Writers Project (FWP) writer Veronica Huss' profile of the "Conchs" (Bahamian immigrants) of Riviera Beach. Armed with his Reflex-Korelle single-lens camera and four rolls of 12 exposure black and white film, Foster spent the day photographing Veronica and her subjects - immigrants from the Bahamas, who were derisively referred by locals as "Conchs". While the book was never published, the WPA's Florida Art Project used the images for a traveling exhibit titled "Conch Town" that toured the nation between 1939 and 1943.
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