{{Short description|American charwoman and photograph subject (1883–1980)}}{{For|the American rancher|Ellen Watson}}{{Infobox person | image = Gordon Parks - American Gothic.jpg | caption = Ella Watson in ''American Gothic'', 1942 | birth_date = 27/29 {{Birth year|March, 1883}} | birth_place = Washington, D.C., US | death_date = {{Death date and age|1980|04|03|1883|03|30}} | death_place = Prince George's County, US | occupation = Charwoman | known_for = Subject of ''American Gothic'' by Gordon Parks }} '''Ella Watson''' (March 27/29, 1883 {{Ndash}} April 3, 1980) was an American janitor and charwoman who was famously the subject of Gordon Parks' photographic series including ''American Gothic'' in 1942, among at least 90 other photographs.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/lens/ella-watson-the-empowered-woman-of-gordon-parks-american-gothic-.html | title=Ella Watson: The Empowered Woman of Gordon Parks's 'American Gothic' | work=The New York Times | date=14 May 2018 | last1=Willis | first1=Deborah }}</ref> According to the Gordon Parks Foundation, "Parks asked if he could take Watson's picture. She agreed, and for four months gave him access to her home and her community. The resulting photographs were a breakthrough in Parks' career."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.gordonparksfoundation.org/gordon-parks/photography-archive/washington-d-c-and-ella-watson-1942|title=WASHINGTON, D.C. AND ELLA WATSON, 1942 - Photography Archive - The Gordon Parks Foundation|website=www.gordonparksfoundation.org}}</ref> In 2024, the Minneapolis Institute of Art exhibited 60 of the photographs.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://new.artsmia.org/exhibition/american-gothic-gordon-parks-and-ella-watson|title=American Gothic: Gordon Parks and Ella Watson | Minneapolis Institute of Art|website=new.artsmia.org}}</ref>
== Early life and career == Ella Watson was born in Washington D.C., United States on either March 27 or March 29, 1883. She left school when she was 15, which is also when she began work as an ironer at Frazee Laundry in Washington.<ref name=":0">{{Cite magazine |last=Lobel |first=Michael |date=October 2018 |title=ICONIC ENCOUNTER |url=https://www.artforum.com/features/michael-lobel-on-gordon-parks-and-ella-watson-240499/ |access-date=2024-07-23 |magazine=Artforum |volume=57 |issue=2}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite news |last=Tillet |first=Salamishah |date=2024-05-08 |title=She Was No 'Mammy' |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2024/05/gordon-parks-photography-ella-watson/678175/ |access-date=2024-07-23 |work=The Atlantic}}</ref> Until 1919, census records show she worked intermittently as a maid and laundress, after which she was employed as a janitor by the United States Department of State, later a caretaker at a family's home, a different federal agency building, the Post Office Department, and then the Department of the Treasury in 1929, where she worked until 1944.<ref name=":1" /> In Parks' memoir ''A Hungry Heart'', by the time he met her in 1942, Watson's father was lynched, her husband shot to death in 1927,<ref name=":1" /> her daughter died after bearing two illegitimate children.{{Sfn|McDannell|2004|p=256}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Parks |first=Gordon |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4RK6OLqkxOgC |title=A Hungry Heart: A Memoir |date=2007-01-09 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-0-7432-6903-2 |pages=64 |language=en}}</ref> At the time, she was living in an apartment and was raising her adopted daughter and grandchildren as a single parent.{{Sfn|McDannell|2004|p=258}}<ref name=":1" />
== ''American Gothic'' == alt=Black and white photo of a room; on the left side is a doorway through which Watson and her children can be seen sitting in a room. On the right side is a drawer, upon which rests a mirror reflecting a different woman and a framed photoportrait of two people.|thumb|Watson with her three grandchildren and her adopted daughter, photographed by Parks during the same summer of ''American Gothic''. {{Main article|American Gothic (photograph)|l1 = American Gothic}}
Gordon Parks was an American photographer who, through a fellowship from the Rosenwald Fund, arrived in Washington D.C. in January 1942, where he gained employment at the Historical Section of the Farm Security Administration.<ref name=":0" />{{Sfn|McDannell|2004|p=256}}
== Legacy == Historian Deborah Willies interviewed her grandchildren in 2018.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.southerncultures.org/article/walking-with-ella-watson/|title=Walking with Ella Watson|date=August 4, 2022|website=Southern Cultures}}</ref> The book ''American Gothic; Gordon Parks and Ella Watson'' published in 2024 explores the series of photographs and the historic collaboration between photographer and subject. The Library of Congress has a collection of the images. Watson is identified as a charwoman in the photos.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004667419/|title=Washington, D.C. August, 1942. Story of Mrs. Ella Watson, Negro government charwoman for 26 years, and miscellaneous scenes in Negro section|first=Gordon|last=Parks|date=October 28, 1942|website=www.loc.gov}}</ref>
== Bibliography == {{refbegin|30em}} * {{Cite book |last=McDannell |first=Colleen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_6Cn_i0pCy4C |title=Picturing Faith: Photography and the Great Depression |date=2004-01-01 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-13007-2 |language=en}} {{refend}}
==References== {{Reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Watson, Ella}} Category:1883 births Category:1980 deaths Category:Janitors Category:19th-century American people Category:20th-century American people Category:People notable for being the subject of a specific photograph