This compact film (by UT cinematography professor Nancy Schiesari) documents the life and career of photojournalist Hansel Mieth, whose widely disseminated photographs make her one of the most prominent lensers about whom you’ve never heard. A plucky refugee from Germany, Mieth arrived in San Francisco during the Depression, where she worked as a migrant laborer and decided to photographically document the workers’ plight. Throughout her career, her images always captured the casualties of social injustice, and by the late Thirties Mieth was a Life magazine staff photographer. Believing that good photography depends on a clear point of view, Mieth was conflicted about her work at Life, and during the latter part of her career Mieth found herself blacklisted. Schiesari’s documentary resurrects a career shunted into the darkness of the McCarthy era.
This article appears in Lost Austin II.