The images were of workers and the plight of their lives.

Interviewee: Neala Schleuning

And so the images were of workers and the plight of their lives. There was a lot of emotionalism in the images. In this country that aesthetic was very powerful. The writers called it the Literary Left. Nearly every writer in the country was captivated by this vision, whether they were communists themselves or not. In the same way as the early Russian artists, the Wanderers went out into the countryside and they looked at how people lived and they portrayed how people lived. For example, Meridel Le Sueur wrote a lot about women during the 1930s and about workers. She was a regular writer for the Daily Worker, the Communist Party’s national newspaper. In addition to writing her own visions she also did this good party work but it was a very predictable message based on an economic analysis.