In 1938 McNeill was selected to join the only all–African American research team within the Works Progress Administration, which provided employment to artists during the Great Depression. He traveled on assignment to photograph the poverty and segregation of the Jim Crow South, and his pictures appeared in a Federal Writers’ Project publication titled The Negro in Virginia. Its authors protested that in rural areas Black children “have for their only playgrounds their school yard, vacant lots of outlying regions, or the alleys.” McNeill’s untitled photograph of boys playing ball in a dusty field echoes this call for improved community facilities.

Gallery label from

2022

Medium Gelatin silver print
Dimensions 7 1/2 × 9 7/16" (19 × 24 cm)
Credit Acquired through the generosity of The Friends of Education of The Museum of Modern Art and Committee on Photography Fund
Object number 929.2014
Department Photography

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Robert H. McNeill

Robert H. McNeill

American, 1917–2005 23 works online

Born into a secure middle-class household in a segregated Washington, DC, Robert H. McNeill absorbed the political and cultural life of the city and studied at Howard University.

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