Carving One of Our Watermelons

William H. Martin

1909 · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

The tall-tale postcard was a uniquely American genre that flourished in the Midwest between about 1908 and 1915. The earliest master of the genre was William H. “Dad” Martin, a studio photographer in Kansas who established a successful sideline crafting photomontages of outlandish agricultural abundance. Intimately familiar with the tribulations of Midwestern farmers, including a fierce drought that parched the land for most of the 1890s, Martin lampooned the inflated promises of fertile soil, abundant rain, and hardy livestock that land companies used to lure settlers westward.

Artist

William H. Martin

Date

1909

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Twentieth-Century Photography Fund, 2010