Graphic artist Lester Beall made a series of posters in the 1930s and 1940s advertising the goals of the Rural Electrification Administration. As the name implies, the New Deal Era program aimed to bring electricity to the countryside, which was still woefully underserved. Beall’s posters became well known for their bold use of color and graphic design. Most featured no people all.
This one is unusual because it focuses on an older woman, who bears many elements of the older woman stereotype. Her hair is drawn back into a bun, she wears granny glasses, her dress features a small scale print, and she has covered most of it with a big apron. One interesting feature is her shoes, which are not the typical low heeled oxford. Instead she has on what looks like flat short boots.
What is the machine she is operating? It looks a bit like a Rube Goldberg contraption. Something to sterilize milk? Perhaps some of you with closer ties to farm life might enlighten me.
It’d be interesting to compare this with the depiction of women in posters trumpeting rural electrification in the Soviet Union in the same period.
The machine is a cream separator. The she is pouring the whole milk in the top, the skim milk goes into the can on the right and the cream goes into the bowl. I have operated one similar many times in my younger days.
Thank you for your expert knowledge!