"The Mayor's Day"
Times Wide World Photos
United States, active 1919–1941
1940
A gelatin silver press photograph titled “The Mayor’s Day” that records a public, ceremonial moment of a civic leader wielding a pneumatic drill amid a crowd of suited officials.
You’re immediately struck by the tense physicality of the two men bracing the heavy drill in the foreground against the composed, hat‑clad procession of onlookers behind them, all rendered in sharp black‑and‑white contrast.
As a piece of 1940s press photography, it shows how newspapers staged and circulated civic rituals—turning a mundane act of construction into a public spectacle that projected authority and progress.
Medium
Gelatin silver print
Dimensions
6 3/4 × 8 9/16" (17.1 × 21.8 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
The New York Times Collection
Accession
2187.2001
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
